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CQESRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE WAY OF THE CROSS 
Rev. J. GREGORY MANTLE, d.d. 



THE WAY 
OF THE CROSS 

A Contribution to the Doctrine of 
Christian Sanctity 

BY 

Rev. J. GREGORY MANTLE, d.d. 

Author of "Better Things," "According to the Pattern/" 

"Guarding the Outposts," "God's Tomorroiu" "The 

Counterfeit Christ and Other Sermons" etc. 



SIXTH EDITION 
REVISED AND ENLARGED 




NEW "^Sr YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



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COPYRIGHT, 1922, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 






PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES, OF AMERICA 

JUL 24 *?? 

©CI.A(;810o9 



I Lovingly 
Inscribe This Volume 
To The Memory Of 

My FATHER and MOTHER 



FOREWORD 

The cordial reception given to this book in five 
previous editions ; the testimonies from far and near 
to definite blessing as the result of pondering and 
appropriating its truths ; the exceedingly sympathetic 
welcome given to the book by the reviewers, rep- 
resenting nearly every section of the Christian 
Church; the demand for the volume now that it is 
out of print — are surely sufficient reasons to warrant 
the issue of another edition. 

The book first appeared more than a quarter of a 
century ago. Instead of finding it necessary to 
change or modify this teaching of the Cross, I find 
myself in accord with it more thoroughly than ever. 

I have carefully revised these pages, and now 
send forth the book again on an errand, as I firmly 
believe, of still larger usefulness. 

J. Gregory Mantle. 
Nyack'On-Hiidson, AT. F. 





CONTENTS 








CHAPTER PAGE 


I 


The All-Methodical God . . • . 13 


II 


A Mixed Life . . . 






. 25 


III 


The Light of the Cross . 






. 37 


IV 


The Idol Self .... 






. 47 


V 


Self and Sin .... 






. 57 


VI 


The Inward Cross 






. 67 


VII 


The Victims of the Cross 






. 79 


VIII 


The World and the Cross 






. 89 


IX 


The Gate of the Cross . 






103 


X 


The Fruit of the Cross . 






113 


XI 


The Gains of the Cross . 






. 127 


XII 


Beauty for Ashes 






. 139 


XIII 


The Pathway of Rejection 






151 


XIV 


The Risen Life .... 






165 


XV 


Married to Another . 






. 183 


XVI 


The Indwelling of Christ 






. 199 


XVII 


Reckoning at the Cross . 






219 


XVIII 


The School of Obedience 






229 


XIX 


The Tests of Obedience . 






239 


XX 


Step by Step . . . . , 






251 


XXI 


The Cross Day By Day . 






261 



Chapter I : The All-methodical God 



Three crosses stood grimly side by side 

On the hill of Calvary; 
On each a suffering man had died; 

Two for their crimes, the other for me. 

Like a lamb they led Him out to die 

From shades of Gethsemane; 
He uttered no moan, no bitter cry; 

'Twas love that moved Him to die for me. 

On the central cross they nailed my Friend, 

To languish in agony; 
He bore it all to the bitter end — 

O vi^onderful love, He died for me. ' 

"If Thou art the Christ," they taunting, said, 
"Come down from the cursed tree;" 

He heeded no jeering word they said. 
But, bowing His head. He died for me. 

Like a wandering sheep I had gone astray, 

But all my iniquity 
My God laid on Him that awful day, 

When, bearing my sins, He died for me. 

Oh, thanks for the love that brought Him down. 

Love, fathomless, like the sea; 
His brow was pierced by a thorny crown. 

That a crown of life might be given me. 

My brother, behold Him, crucified, 

On the cross of Calvary; 
Thy ransom see in that crimson tide ; 

Oh freely it flowed for you and me. 

—British Weekly. 



Chapter I: The All-methodical 
God 

Readers of Sir George Adam Smith's ^Isaiah" 
will remember that on several occasions in the first 
volume of his Commentary he calls attention to the 
word ambiguously translated ''judgment/' and re- 
minds us that the word means method, order, sys- 
tem, law; so that when we read in chapter xxx. i8, 
that "the Lord is a God of judgment," Isaiah means 
that God has His own way and time for doing 
things, and that "having laid down His lines ac- 
cording to righteousness and established His laws in 
wisdom, He remains in His dealings with men con- 
sistent with these." 

"It is a great truth," says he, "that the All-mighty 
and All-merciful is the All-methodical too; and no 
religion is complete in its creed, or healthy in its 
influence, which does not insist equally on all these." 
A full recognition of the orderliness of God in His 
working would save us from much of the disap- 
pointment which we now experience, and greatly 
increase the healthiness and consequent power of 
true religion. 

13 



14 The Way of the Cross 

This suggestive fragment of history is an illustra- 
tion of the importance of the doctrine which this 
book is intended to enforce, for God will not allow 
the Divine Order in the purification and perfecting 
of Christian character to be disturbed without pen- 
alty. Alarmed by Isaiah's predictions of the siege 
of Jerusalem, the Jewish poHticians were startled 
into doing something. Instead, however, of return- 
ing in penitence to God, and relying upon Him in 
the time of their threatened trouble, they sought to 
accomplish an expensive and profitless alliance with 
Egypt. .What scorn Isaiah pours upon this suicidal 
intrigue ! 

Then he pictures the caravan which Judah sent 
with tribute to Egypt. In a few graphic strokes he 
gives us to see asses and camels carrying their riches 
through the land of trouble and anguish, through 
lions and vipers and fiery-flying serpents, to a 
people who will only deceive and disappoint them, 
for "Egypt helpeth in vain, and to no purpose, there- 
fore have I called her Rahab Sit-StiW (xxx. i-8). 
It was not dliance they needed, as Dr. Smith says, 
but reliance; for "Thus saith the Lord God, the 
Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest shall ye 
be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be 
your strength; and ye would not. . . . And there- 
fore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious 
unto you; and therefore will He be exalted, that He 



The All-methodical God 15 

may have mercy upon you, for the Lord is a God of 
method : blessed are all they that wait for Him." 

We sometimes congratulate ourselves on the 
cleverness and ingenuity of our plans, as the princes 
of Judah did in this instance; but Isaiah reminds 
them that "God also is clever, and will bring evil, 
and will not call back His words" (xxxi. 2). Until 
we have learned that no individual, church, or nation 
can play tricks with God, that He has His own way 
and time of doing things. He will wait, that He may 
be gracious; and blessed are they who turn away 
from Egypt, with their chariots and horsemen, and 
wait for Him. 

The great sin of man has always been in this 
direction, a preference of his own will to the will of 
God; a preference of his own inclinations for God's 
obligations. It is the sin of the Church to-day, and 
the explanation of her enfeebled and pitiable position 
in the eyes of the world. When we think we have 
discovered a short and easy road to success, and 
have forsaken the Fountain of living waters to hew 
out to ourselves cisterns, we shall always find that 
our hewing has been labour lost, and that our cis- 
terns are broken and will hold no water. 

Does the Church of Jesus Christ think she can 
accomplish God's work in the world without a defi- 
nite experience of heart purity and the Pentecostal 
baptism? It is admitted that the early Christians 



l6 The Way of the Cross 

were thus made usable to the Master; but there is 
an impression abroad that this qualification for 
successful service can be dispensed with in these 
days. The result is failure, disheartenment, disap- 
pointment; for the Lord is a God of method. The 
Holy Spirit waits to show men and women how the 
Cross of Christ is the pathway of complete deliver- 
ance from the guilt and power of sin; and He will 
stand aloof from His people while they cherish 
those "low views" with which, as Faber says, it is 
as easy for the devil to contend against God as with 
mortal sins. 

These "low views" of sin and of privilege explain 
the pride, the passion, the selfishness, the envy, the 
jealousy, the resentment, the barrenness, the world- 
liness, the secret sympathy with sin over which 
thousands of really converted people mourn, and 
from which they sometimes think there is no 
deliverance. And God is raising up, all over the 
land, witnesses to His power to effect a "double 
cure," not only to save from wrath and to pardon 
actual transgressions, but to deal with that moral 
depravity which lies further back and deeper down 
in our nature, and is at the fountain-head of all 
character and activity. 

What command could be more imperative and 
explicit than that which the risen Christ gave to His 
disciples : "Tarry ye until ye are endued with power 



The All-methodical God 17 

from on high"? They dare not go forth to their 
work without this power. To have done so would 
have been to court defeat and to expose themselves 
to ridicule. When they were thus equipped they 
reached the maximum of their usefulness, men and 
women were saved by thousands, and the kingdom 
of Christ advanced by leaps and bounds. Then the 
Church formed an alliance with the world ; she laid 
her head in the lap of Delilah, and being shorn of 
her true strength, began making frantic efforts to do 
her work without the all-essential credentials. Those 
credentials are the possession of authority over all 
the power of the enemy; and we vainly imagine that 
abiding work can be done in our pulpits, Sabbath 
schools, mission halls, or in any other direction, by. 
activity minus the power of the Holy Spirit. Sooner 
or later we shall awake to the fact that the Lord is 
a God of method, and that blessed are all they that 
wait for Him. 

Let us ponder, in conclusion, the four words 
which the prophet here uses to indicate in what 
direction their salvation lay, and upon what terms 
they might be sure of the Divine interposition and 
abiding protection. 

The first is the word ''returning." "In returning 
and rest shall ye be saved" (Is. 30:15). Instead 
of going to Egypt for help, and impoverishing 
themselves by an alliance, forbidden, senseless, and 



l8 The Way of the Cross 

unprofitable, they might be assured of God's for- 
giveness and favour by returning in brokenness of 
spirit to Him. Have we any reason to expect any 
large outpouring of the Holy Spirit until we too 
return in true and deep penitence to God? The 
place of confession is the place of forgiveness. It 
is here God is pledged to meet us, and nothing is 
more striking throughout the history of this re- 
bellious and wayward people, than God's readiness 
to forgive and restore them to His favour on the 
first indication of true repentance. * 'Remember from 
whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first 
works; or else. . . ." Immutable is the promise: 
"Return unto Me, and I will return unto you." 
The God All-methodical is the God All-merciful. 
He waits that He may he gracious. 

The second word is "rest/^ The meaning is, of 
course, such a resting in God as would prove the 
genuineness of their return to him. Vain was their 
reliance on the multitude of chariots and the strong 
body of cavalry to which they would point as a 
valuable addition to the fighting strength of Judah; 
for, as Isaiah reminds them, "The Egyptians are 
men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not 
spirit" (xxxi. 3). Yet their perversity was sucH 
that they preferred the horses of Egypt to the steeds 
of God. 

Rest! Thousands of hearts are longing for it! 



The All-methodical God 19 

And it cannot be found, as some vainly dream, by 
flying away on the wings of a dove from their sur- 
roundings. Rest comes through a true confession 
and determined forsaking of sin, and through the 
cleansing of the nature from its stains, for sin in 
every form is dis-ease, the opposite of rest. Ma- 
terial things are in a state of rest while fulfilling 
the laws and purposes for which they exist. The 
least variation of adjustment results in disquietude 
instead of repose. So rest comes to man through 
an adjustment of his will to the will of God. "Take 
My yoke (i.e., My will) upon you , . . and ye shall 
find rest unto your souls." The Romans forced 
their enemies to put their neck under a yoke as a 
sign of defeat. Hence we get the word subjugate 
— sub, under; jugum, a yoke. Rest comes through 
the subjugation of the whole being to Jesus. The 
perfect emblem of rest is God, and in proportion as 
man has his centre in God he becomes a partaker of 
His rest (Heb. iv. 3), 

The third word is ''quietness/' "In quietness and 
confidence shall be your strength." How the very 
word rebukes the haste, excitement, and trepidation 
with which they had prepared for the siege of their 
city! ''He that believeth shall not make haste f 
What so surely indicates the feebleness of our grasp 
of these eternal truths as the fretted, harassed, fever- 
ish, fussy lives so many of us live! When all 



20 The Way of the Cross 

occasion for conflict has been put away, and we 
drink deep draughts of heavenly life, we shall know 
what has been called ''the high pressure of the Holy 
Ghost," which is not contrary to that reposeful and 
quiet spirit which characterised the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and which He means us also to possess. 

The fourth word is "confidence" The word 
means the assurance and courage which comes of 
the settling down of the soul upon one who is known 
to be true and trustworthy. "They that know 
Thy name will put their trust in Thee" (Psalm 
ix. lo). To know God is to trust Him; to know 
Him perfectly, is to have that perfect confidence in 
Him which alone inspires courage, and is the secret 
of all true spiritual strength. ''In confidence shall 
be your strength/' There are two departments in 
the school of grace where this confidence is acquired, 
and in both of them the pupils must be taught, — 
one is the Word of God, and the other is the walk 
with God. What can explain the confidence of 
Judson, and many another noble missionary, work- 
ing steadily on for years without any sign of visible 
success, but this settling down of the spirit upon 
God — an attitude which had, with them, become a 
habit of life? 

As we learn to tread the way of the Cross we 
shall enter more fully than ever into the meaning of 
Paul's words: *'We are the circumcision, who 



The All-methodical God 21 

worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ 
Jesus, and have no confidence in the Hesk'" (Phil, 
iii. 3). And loss of confidence in ourselves will be 
followed by a constant glorying in Jesus as the 
source of all our life, the secret of all our strength. 
Multitudes have yet to learn that the God All- 
methodical is, to those who practically recognise 
Him as such, the God All-mighty; and to be con- 
tinually stayed upon Him is restfulness, quietness, 
confidence, and strength. 



Chapter II : A Mixed Life 



Search me, O God ! my actions try. 

And let my life appear 
As seen by Thine all-searching eye— • 

To mine my ways make clear. 

Search all my sense, and know my heart 
Who only canst make known. 
And let the deep, the hidden part 
To me be fully shown. 

Throw light into the darkened cells. 

Where passion reigns within; 
Quicken my conscience till it feels 

The loathesomeness of sin. 

Search all my thoughts, the secret springs. 
The motives that control; 
The chambers where polluted things 
Hold empire o'er the soul. 

Search, till Thy fiery glance has cast 

Its holy light through all, 
And I by grace am brought at last 

Before Thy face to fall. 

Thus prostrate I shall learn of Thee, 

What now I feebly prove. 
That God alone in Christ can be 

Unutterable love! 

— F. Boftome. 



Chapter II: A Mixed Life 

In the beginning a threefold separation was ac- 
complished before the command was given: *'Be 
fruitful, and multiply.'' God separated the light 
from the darkness, the waters beneath from the 
waters above the firmament, the sea from the dry- 
land. 

To show His jealousy for physical order still 
further, He forbid an Israelite to plow with an 
ox and an ass under the same yoke (Deut. xxii. lo). 
The ox is a clean animal and works with a yoke on 
his neck. The ass is an unclean animal and works 
with a collar on his neck. They are contrary tO' each 
other in their nature, in their walk, and in their mode 
of pulling the plow. The sowing of a field with 
mingled seed, and the wearing of a garment mingled 
of linen and woollen were also strictly forbidden 
(Lev. xix. 19). To this day an orthodox Jew will 
not mend a woollen garment with a flaxen thread. 
One of the preparations made by the Jews for an 
approaching Passover was to go over the fields and 
root up plants that had grown from mingled seeds. 
These prohibitions were intended to cultivate in the 

25 



26 The Way of the Cross 

mind of the people the sentiment of reverence for 
the order established in nature by God. Wool and 
linen come from separate kingdoms in nature, one 
from the animal, the other from the vegetable, and 
unmixedness of moral character is clearly fore- 
shadowed. To wear, in the same robe, the wool of 
selfishness and the linen of spirituality is contrary to 
the law of order which prevails in the kingdom of 
grace as in the kingdom of nature. God is as 
jealous — ^nay, more jealous — of moral order than of 
physical order, and in the management of their 
cattle, in the cultivation of their fields, in the making 
and wearing of their clothes, God was whispering in 
their ear, "Be ye separate.'^ "Be pure in heart and 
life." "What communion hath light with dark- 
ness?'* 

This thought of unmixedness is still further 
illustrated in the dress of the priests: "When the 
priests minister in the inner court, they shall be 
clothed with linen garments; no wool shall come 
upon them while they minister in the inner court, 
and within" (Ezek. xliv. 17). Woolen garments 
would occasion sweat. Sweat is a sign of the fall, 
and of man's sin. It is part of the curse and penalty 
of disobedience. Linen is entirely free from grease, 
and it is always used as a type of grace separate 
from sin. To enter "within the veil" and dwell 
there in the presence of God, there must be a laying 



A Mixed Life 27 

aside of all that appertains to the dark world — ^the 
world of our selfhood — and we must be clothed with 
the fine linen, clean and white, which is the righteous 
acts of the saints and the robing of the Bride of 
Christ (Rev. xix. 8). 

Few will deny that this mixedness in Christian 
life and work is a great bane, and seriously inter- 
feres with the effectiveness of both. This must be 
so, because it is a subversion of God's order, and, 
as we have previously intimated, the creature will 
not be permitted with impunity to interfere with the 
laws established by the Creator. This was Paul's 
trouble in the Corinthian Church. The Christians 
were possessed of a regenerate babe-life which Paul 
calls "carnality." They lived a kind of suspended 
life, now dominated by the flesh and now by the 
Spirit, and the result was an elementary experience, 
envying, strife, and division (i Cor. iii.). Those 
who are living this mixed life are spoken of as 
double-minded (more exactly double-souled) men 
(James i. 8; iii. 8). There is only one cure for 
such a condition. It is the converging of all the 
desires and affections in the same centre, viz., the 
love of God's will and glory. When this is the case 
true singleness of heart is experienced. "If thine 
eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." 

Before we can live the unmixed life, and belong 
no longer to the carnal but to the spiritual Christians, 



28 The Way of the Cross 

we must be willing to know the extent of the 
mixedness in our own character, for what the eye 
does not see the heart will not grieve over. Before 
we invite God to search us, let us pause and ask 
whether we are willing that He should make a 
thorough work of this self -discovery, however pain- 
ful and humbling it may be. If not, we had better 
not begin ; for it is better to be without the light than 
to possess it and be disobedient. 

For obvious reasons no branch of knowledge is 
so neglected as knowledge of ourselves. In other 
sciences knowledge flatters the vanity of the un- 
sanctified heart ; it exalts men in the eyes of others, 
it increases their influence in the world. But true 
self -discovery wounds our pride, and spoils the good 
opinion we had formed and cherished of ourselves. 
We may be skilled in every other science and 
ignorant in this. We may be able to calculate the 
motions of the heavenly bodies, and know nothing 
of the movements of our own sinful nature. We 
may be able to plant our foot on a mountain summit 
where no human foot has ever before trod, and yet 
be ignorant of the dimensions of the black mountain 
of evil in our heart. We may be able by chemical 
analysis to detect and decompose the material sub- 
stances around us, and yet never analyse the mo- 
tives by which we are influenced, and which colour 
and stain all our conduct. 



A Mixed Life 29 

"Self-love conspires with trust in our own hearts 
to make dupes of us as regards our spiritual account. 
Proverbially, and in the verdict of all experience, 
love is blind; and if love be blind, self-love being 
the strongest, the most subtle, the most changeless, 
the most difficult to eradicate of all loves, is blinder 
still. Self-love will not see, as self -trust cannot see, 
anything against us." It is this ignorance that 
leads to quiescence. The hateful foe assumes such 
disguises, and appears so exactly the opposite of 
what he really is, that we lose sight of the fact that 
he is a devil still, and that, as Luther was wont to 
say, the white devil is more to be dreaded than the 
black. 

yVhat is necessary then, since self-love will cause 
us to live in such a fool's paradise if we follow its 
interested opinion, is the search-light of God. This, 
and this alone, will disturb our self-complacency 
and self-deception. ^'Because thou sayest, I am 
rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of 
nothing ; and knowest not that thou art the wretched 
one and miserable and poor and blind and naked; 
I counsel thee to buy of me gold refined by fire, 
that thou mayest become rich; and white garments 
that thou mayest clothe thyself, and that the shame 
of thy nakedness be not made manifest; and eye- 
salve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see" 
(Rev. iii. 17, 18, r.v.). "The heart is deceitful 



30 The Way of the Cross 

above all things, and desperately wicked, who can 
know it? I the Lord search the heart; I try the 
reins (the hidden part) even to give every man 
according to his ways, and according to the fruit 
of his doings*' (Jer. 17:9, 10). What are spoken 
of as the reins, here and elsewhere in the Bible, are 
the secret thoughts, desires, and affections of the 
soul. 

The heart is so exceedingly complicated and in- 
tricate; it is so near the eye which seeks to investi- 
gate it, that it baffles our research. There are a few 
things about the heart which are broad and open, and 
which we can, in some measure, discover. But there 
are chambers, receding within chambers, which no 
human investigation can ever reach. To explore 
these hidden chambers is the prerogative of God 
alone. 

We live in an age of shallowness and superficial- 
ity, and we possess a marvellous capacity for self- 
deception. This capacity the enemy finds to be one 
of his most effective weapons for destroying the 
souls of men. 

Our love of ease and our unwillingness to be dis- 
turbed, lead us to avoid the prayer: "Search me, 
O God, and know my heart; try me and know my 
thoughts; and see if there be any way of pain or 
grief in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" 
(Psalm 139:23,24). 



A Mixed Life 31 

Painful and humiliating as the searching and ex- 
posure may be, the very beginning of a life that is 
all for God turns upon our being absolutely honest 
with Him about our present spiritual condition. 

The two great pillars upon which true Scriptural 
Christianity rests are the greatness of our fall and 
the greatness of our redemption. * 'Until/' says 
William Law, "yo^ ^^^ renewed in the spirit of 
your mind, your virtues are only taught practices 
and grafted upon a corrupt bottom. Everything 
that you do will be a mixture of good and bad ; your 
himiility will help you to pride; your charity to 
others will give nourishment to your own self-love, 
and as your prayers increase so will the opinion of 
your own sanctity. Because till the heart is purified 
to the bottom, and has felt the axe at the root of its 
evil (which cannot be done by outward instruction), 
everything that proceeds from it partakes of its 
impurity and corruption." 

Nothing is easier than self-deception; few things 
are so difficult as real self -disclosure. We may be 
claiming and even professing the experience of 
holiness, and yet know nothing of a total death to 
the carnal or natural life. The dress and conversa- 
tion of the inhabitants of Canaan are imitable; but 
the true Divine life is as inimitable as life always 
is. Let us not mistake phraseology for experience, 
the maiming of the enemy for his death, sancti- 



32 The Way of the Cross 

moniousness for sanctification, unctuousness for 
unction, or the knowledge of the truth for the Spirit 
of truth, for "when truths have once been fully re- 
vealed and been made a part of orthodoxy, the 
history of them does not necessarily imply an opera- 
tion of the Spirit of God.'* 

There is a striking thought in the literal transla- 
tion of Hebrews iv. 13 : "Neither is there any 
creature that is not manifest in His sight: but all 
things are naked, and lying open unto the eyes of 
Him with Whom we have to do." The passage 
might be rendered: "All things are stripped and 
stunned," the figure being that of an athlete in the 
Coliseum, who has fought his best in the arena, and 
has at length fallen at the feet of his adversary, 
disarmed and broken down in helplessness. There 
he lies, unable to strike a blow or lift his arm. He 
is stripped and stunned, disarmed and disabled, and 
there is nothing left for him but to lie at the feet of 
his adversary, and throw up his arms for mercy. It 
means, as Alford reminds us, not only the stripping 
off of all coverings and concealments, but the lying 
prostrate in exposure before the eye of God, the 
God "with whom we have to do." That is what the 
Holy Spirit and the searching Word will do for us 
if we are willing ; and until we are willing, we shall 
be living a mixed life, with more or less of self, and 
more or less of Christ. 



A Mixed Life 33 

The ingratitude and unreasonableness of offering 
the Lord Jesus Christ a mixed life, a divided heart, 
has rarely been better expressed than in the search- 
ing and forceful lines of quaint old Francis Quarles : 

"Give Me thine heart, but as I gave it thee; 
Or give it Me at least as I 
Have given Mine 
To purchase thine. 
I halved it not when I did die; 
But wholly gave Myself to set thee free. 

"But whilst thine heart's divided, it is dead; 
Dead unto Me, unless it live 
To Me alone. 
It is all one 
To keep all, and a part to give : 
For what's a body worth without a head ? 

"Yet this is worse, that what thou keep'st from Me 
Thou dost bestow upon My foes: 
And those not Mine 
Alone, but thine: 
The proper cause of all thy woes 
From whom I gave My life to set thee free. 

"Have I betrothed thee to Myself, and shall 
The devil, and the world, intrude 
Upon My right 
Even in My sight? 
Think not thou canst Me so delude : 
/ will have none, unless I may have aU. 

"I made it all, I gave it all to thee. 
I gave all that I had for it : 
If I must lose, 
I'd rather choose 
Mine interest in it all to quit : 
Or keep it whole. Oh, give it whole to Me !" 



Chapter III : The Light of the Cross 



My God ! my God ! and can it be 
That I should sin so lightly now, 

And think no more of evil thoughts 

Than of the wind that waves the bough ? 

I sin, and heaven and earth go round 
As if no dreadful deed were done; 

As if Thy blood had never flowed 
To hinder sin or to atone. 

Shall it be always thus, O Lord? 

Wilt Thou not work this hour in me 
The grace Thy passion merited, 

Hatred of self and love of Thee? 

Oh, by the pains of Thy pure love, 
Grant me the gift of holy fear ; 

And by Thy woes and bloody sweat. 
Oh, wash my guilty conscience clear. 

Ever when tempted make me see. 

Beneath the olives' moon-pierced shade 

My God, alone, outstretched, and bruised 
And bleeding on the earth He made. 

And make me feel it was my sin, 
As though no other sins there were. 

That was to Him who bears the world 
A load that He could scarcely bear. 



Chapter III: The Light of the 
Cross 

"The school of the Cross/' said John Bunyan 
when he was dying, *4s the school of light." It is 
the mirror in which the selfishness, hideousness, and 
penalty of human sin are reflected. There is no 
search-light like that which flashes from the hill of 
Calvary for discovering to us the plague of our own 
hearts. 

Simeon's words which predict the sorrows that 
are to pierce Mary's heart, predict also the laying 
open of the hidden dispositions of many other hearts 
(Luke ii. 34, 35). Our deepest self is revealed by 
our attitude to the Cross of Jesus. If we stand in 
its light, we shall find it a touchstone where we are 
tried and proved to the very depths of our being. 
It will be "quick and powerful, and sharper than any 
two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing 
asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and 
marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and in- 
tents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that 
is not manifest in His sight." 

37 



38 The Way of the Cross 

The Cross is not only possessed of sin-conquering, 
but of sin-discovering, power. Before it can be 
**death to every vice," it must be light to reveal its 
loathsomeness. When Mark Antony wanted to 
inflame the Roman populace against the assassins of 
Julius Caesar, he lifted up the dead emperor's gar- 
ment and said: — 

"You all do know this mantle : I remember 
The first time ever Caesar put it on; 
Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent ; 
Look ! in this place, ran Cassius* dagger through ; 
See, what a rent the envious Casca made : 
Through this, the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd. 
And, as he pluck'd his cursed steel away, 
Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it." 

To see what your sin really means bring it into 
the light of the Cross, and say as you gaze upon 
that marred visage and those pierced hands and 
feet: "It was my pride, my lust, my unbelief, my 
selfishness, that pointed the nails and fixed the 
thorns.** There are those who can testify that the 
perceived relation of the death of Christ to their 
sin has instantly so discovered to them its true 
character, and has so broken its power, that the Cross 
has proved in an utterly unexpected sense their path- 
way to freedom. Look upon Him, as upon the true 
Serpent of brass, till the fever and the poison of 
your sin be healed. 

A Bechuana Christian exclaimed in the enthusi- 



The Light of the Cross 39 

asm of his newly- found faith : "The Cross of Christ 
condemns me to become a saint!'* His words 
contain an all-important truth, for they at once 
reveal the real purpose of the Saviour's death and 
the true object of the Christian's life. That object 
is not chiefly the forgiveness of sins, not a title to 
heaven, not deliverance from the wrath to come, 
but a saintly walk. God has called us to be saints. 
Happiness, pardon, and heaven are subordinate. 
Holiness is the element in which salvation and 
heaven are to be found. Yes, the Cross condemns 
me to become a saint. Every Christian is a saint by 
calling. We are "called" saints, let us be saints. 

It is out of the light of the Cross that men who 
profess to be Christians, and who have perchance 
renounced glaring sins, drop into a slothful, selfish, 
worldly life. They contrast their present with their 
past; or they compare their life with the lives so 
many are living around them, and they are content. 
The danger of this condition is intensified, because 
in gross sin there is some prospect of getting the 
conscience disturbed, but in this unhealthy state 
they persuade themselves that this is all that is re- 
quired of them, and all that Jesus can do for them, 
and they cry: "Peace, peace, when there is no 
peace !" 

St. Paul meets the horrible suggestion, "Shall we 
continue in sin that grace may abound?'* with the 



40 The Way of the Cross 

words: **God forbid. How shall we, who died ta 
sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that sa 
many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were 
baptized into His death?" (Rom. vi. 1-3). That 
surely means that Christ's death implies union as 
well as substitution. His death and resurrection- 
life condemn me to be a saint, and it is unspeakably 
mean of me to claim to be one with Him in the 
freedom from sin's punishment, which His Cross 
secures, and not one with Him in His relation to the 
hateful sin itself. Dean Vaughan speaks strongly 
when he says : "All sinning now is a re-crucifixion — 
it is a disregard, it is a despite, it is more — it is a 
re-binding and re-nailing and re-torturing and re- 
agonising and re-killing of Him whose one death 
was the sufficient sin-bearing, and therefore the in- 
tended sin-eradication and sin-extermination for 
ever." 

Yet this crime of perpetual crucifixion is con- 
tinually enacted in the thought-life of the world, 
and with this awful aggravation: the men of the 
first century knew not what they did, they sinned 
in the dark, but the men of the twentieth century 
sin against the light. The criterion of character 
is moral identification. When Abraham Lincoln 
was assassinated there were men in the North who 
applauded the act, but no sooner did the words 
"Served him right" fall from their lips than they 



The Light of the Cross 41 

were instantly riddled with the bullets of the pa- 
triots. Why? Because the men of the North 
looked upon soul-identification with treason as 
treason, and sympathy with a traitor as making a 
man a traitor. It is worth while to question our- 
selves with regard to our moral identification. 
Where do we stand with regard to Christ? If our 
life belies our lips, if we make an orthodox profes- 
sion but live a heterodox life; if we trifle with what 
we ignorantly call little sins and allow them to have 
dominion over us; if we are cowardly and silent, 
and given to desertion as the Christ of God stands 
at the bar of public opinion; if we not only refuse 
to confess Him ourselves, but hinder others from 
confessing Him, we morally identify ourselves with 
those who cried: **Away with Him; not this man, 
but Barabbas !'' 

"Behold," says St. John, **He cometh with clouds; 
and every eye shall see Him, and they also which 
pierced Him." (Rev. i :y). He does not only mean 
Pilate and Herod, the priests and His crucifiers on 
Mount Calvary, but the whole conspiracy of sinful 
and rebellious wills, by whom He has been betrayed 
and bound, buffeted and wounded, from the begin- 
ning until His coming again. 

It was not the hammer and the nails, as Manning 
says, which crucified Him ; nor the Roman soldiers 
who wielded the weapons of His passion; nor the 



42 The Way of the Cross 

arm and the hand which smote the sharp iron into 
the wood — ^these were but the blind material instru- 
ments of His agony. His true crucifiers were our 
sins, — and we, ourselves — the sinners, for whom He 
died. This was the real power of darkness which 
set in motion all the array of death. Wilful sins 
renew, in virtue and by implication, the wounds 
that were suffered on Mount Calvary. And this re- 
veals in us the true depth and measure of our guilt. 

We are guilty of deception when we deal with 
our sins in a heap. Let us bring them into the light 
of the Cross and treat them singly, for each one, 
taken alone, contains the whole principle of rebel- 
lion against God and made Calvary, with its awful 
anguish and loneliness, a terrible necessity. 

Let us beware of the subtle danger of renouncing 
the sins of the flesh, the outward acts of sin, and yet 
fondly cherishing the inward sins of the spirit. The 
soul may consent that the chambers of imagery 
should still be hung with pictures of evil things, 
though the evil may never be betrayed into acts. 
Sins of the spirit may be hidden under a life that 
is outwardly without blame. Our only safety lies in 
having our whole life judged in the light of the 
Cross, appropriating continually the cleansing which 
that Cross has provided from all defilement both of 
flesh and spirit (2 Cor. 7:1). 



The Light of the Cross 43 

"I see the crowd in Pilate's hall, 
I mark their wrathful mien ; 
Their shouts of 'Crucify !' appal, 
With blasphemy between. 

"And of that shouting multitude 
I feel that I am one ; 
And in that din of voices rude 
I recognise my own. 

" 'Twas I that shed the sacred blood, 
I nailed Him to the tree, 
I crucified the Christ of God, 
I joined the mockery. 

"Yet not the less that Blood avails 
To cleanse away my sin. 
And not the less that Cross prevails 
To give me peace within." 



Chapter IV: The Idol Self 



Oh, what pains, and what a death it is to nature, to turn 
me, myself, my lust, my ease, my credit, over into "my 
Lord, my Saviour, my King, and my God, my Lord's will, 
my Lord's grace !" But alas ! that idol, that whorish 
creature myself is the master-idol we all bow to. What 
hurried Eve headlong upon the forbidden fruit, but that 
wretched thing herself? What drew that brother-mur- 
derer to kill Abel? That untamed himself. What drove 
the old world on to corrupt their ways ? Who, but them- 
selves, and their own pleasure? What was the cause of 
Solomon's falling into idolatry and multiplying of strange 
wives? What but himself, whom he would rather please 
than God? What was the hook that took David and 
snared him first in adultery, but his self-lustf and then in 
murder, but his self-credit and self-honour. What led 
Peter on to deny his Lord? Was it not a piece of him- 
self, and self-love to a whole skin ? What made Judas sell 
his master for thirty pieces of silver, but the idolising of 
avaricious self? What made Demas to go off the way of 
the Gospel to embrace the present world? Even self-love 
and a love for gain for himself. 

Every man blameth the devil for his sins ; but the great 
devil, the house-devil of every man, the house-devil that 
eateth and lieth in every man's bosom, is that idol that 
killeth all, himself. Oh! blessed are they who can deny 
themselves, and put Christ in the room of themselves! 

sweet word: "I live no more, but Christ liveth in me!" 

— Samuel Rutherford. 
There is a nervous disease known to the physician as 
chorea, and in this distemper 'the patient sometimes turns 
round and continues to spin slowly on one spot.' Egotism 
is just an incessant spinning on one spot. Sometimes we 
spin slowly round about our own particular talent. An 
ailment is apt to make us think ourselves interesting to 
other people, and we move as the craving absorbents of 
the world's sympathy. Incessant self-regard imprisons a 
life in the wintriest impoverishment. If I would attain 
unto a life that is bright, genial, fruitful and interesting, 

1 must cease to spin upon a point and move in wider fields. 
I must be born into my brother's world, and stand at his 
point of view, and contemplate the landscape of life from 
his window. — Dr. J. H. Jowett, 



Chapter IV: The Idol Self 

We are told in the history of India, that Mah-^ 
moud — who conquered a great portion of India 
hundreds of years ago — destroyed all the idols in 
every town to which he came. In time he laid siege 
to the great city of Guzurat. Forcing for himself 
an entrance into the costliest shrine of the Brahmins, 
there rose before him the figure of a gigantic idol, 
fifteen feet high. He instantly ordered it to be 
destroyed. The Brahmins of the temple prostrated 
themselves at his feet, and said: "Great Mahmoud, 
spare our god, for the fortunes of this city depend 
upon him." 

"Ransom vast of gold they offer, pearls of price and 

jewels rare. 
Purchase of their idol's safety, this their dearest will he 
spare. 

"And there wanted not who counselled, that he should his 
hand withhold, 
Should that single image suffer, and accept the proffered 
gold." 

But Mahmoud, after a moment's pause, said he 
would rather be knovm as the breaker than the seller 
of idols, and struck the image with his battle-axe. 

47 



48 The Way of the Cross 

His soldiers followed, and in an instant the idol was 
broken to pieces. It proved to be hollow, and had 
been used as a receptacle for thousands of precious 
gems, which, as the image was shattered, fell at the 
conqueror's feet. 

*'From its shattered side, revealing pearls and diamonds, 
showers of gold; 
More than all that proffered ransom, more than all a 
hundredfold." 

Such an idol is self, who pleads and promises that 
^*if we will but let it stand, it has pleasures, gifts 
and treasures to enrich us at command." This hate- 
ful idol will spend years in intriguing to escape from 
the hand of God. Not in listening to its pleadings, 
however, but in delivering the idol to utter destruc- 
tion, shall we find our true wealth and pleasure, for 
jewels of priceless worth await those who have 
learned the secret of losing their life for Christ's 
sake that they may find it. 

Utter abandonment to God is, then, the only way 
of blessing. The alabaster vase must be broken 
that the ointment may flow out to fill the house. 
The grapes must be crushed that there may be 
wine to drink. Whole, self-centred, unbruised, un- 
broken men are but of little use, they "abide alone," 
living lives of isolated selfish indifference to every- 
one but themselves. They murmur at God's provi- 
dences, because self is disturbed in its enjoyment; 



The Idol Self 49 

they are easily offended and difficult to reconcile, 
because their self-esteem has been wounded; they 
thirst for and eagerly drink in the flattery and praise 
of men because it indulges self-love ; they are proud 
and egotistical, because they love to worship at the 
shrine of self; they are reluctant to give wealth or 
time to God's work in the world, because they want 
their time for their own ease, and their wealth for 
their own enjoyment. The nemesis of such a life 
is that, shrinking from the denial of self they die in 
self, for there must be a total loss of self, either in 
God and for Him, or eternal bondage to self. 

It is of the utmost importance that we understand 
what is meant by the word ''Self" in this book. Self 
is the essence of personality. There are three ele- 
ments in a human personality, the judgment, the 
affections and the will. All these constituents of our 
selfhood have been corrupted and dislocated by the 
Fall. 

The judgment is not to be relied upon. It puts 
darkness for light and light for darkness. It has 
lost its proper estimate of values, and is set on gain- 
ing the world to the loss of the soul. 

The affections are depraved, seeking the things 
below rather than the things above. Its tendrils are 
turned earthward instead of heavenward. It loves 
the world, and prefers it to the love of the Father. 

The will has lost its regal power. It is strong 



50 The Way of the Cross 

when it ought to be weak, and it is weak when it 
ought to be strong. It says "No'* when it ought to 
say "Yes;" and "Yes" when it ought to say "No." 

The egotist is a pitiable creature. The whole 
foreground of his picture is dominated by one 
sinister figure, SELF. The capital I stands out 
everywhere. 

The selfish man is alone^ — but he knows it not. 
He multiplies self all around, and mistakes the 
multiplied self for lives of others. In the Palace of 
Wurtzung there hangs a hall of glass. It is called 
the Hall of a Thousand Mirrors. You enter — a 
thousand hands are stretched out to meet you, a 
thousand smiles greet your smile, a thousand eyes 
will weep when you weep; but they are all your 
hands, your smiles, your tears. What a picture of 
the selfish man! Self all around, self multipHed, 
and he is deceived. 

What an awakening for the self-centred man 
when all the mirrors are smashed, and his naked 
soul, unloved, and unloving, with a universe around 
him of hearts out of touch with his, comes face to 
face with the awful solitude of a self that has never 
died, nay, that has lost its power to die. 

No wonder Luther said : "I am more afraid of my 
own heart than of the Pope and all his cardinals. I 
have within me that great Pope, Self." 

Few of us recognise how the uncrucified self 



The Idol Self 51 

stains and spoils our service for God and man. 

Listen to one of those great spiritual teachers — one 

of the foremost of the Quiet of the Land — Gerhard 

Tersteegen : 

"Apart from Thee 
I am not only naught, but worse than naught, 
A wretched monster, horrible of mien! 
And when I work my works in self's vain strength, 
However good and holy they may seem. 
These works are hateful — nay, in Thy pure sight 
Are criminal and fiendish, since thereby 
I seek, and please, and magnify myself 
In subtle pride of goodness, and ascribe 
To Self the glory that is Thine alone. 
So dark, corrupt, so vile a thing is self. 
Seen in the presence of Thy purity 
It turns my soul to loathing and disgust ; 
Yea, all the virtues that it boasts to own 
Are foul and worthless when I look on Thee. 
Oh that there might be no more / or mine ! 
That in myself I might no longer own 
As mine, my life, my thinking, or my choice. 
Or any other motion, but in me 
That Thou, my God, my Jesus, might be all, 
And work the all in all ! Let that, O Lord, 
Be dumb, forever, die, and cease to be. 
Which Thou dost not Thyself in me inspire. 
And speak and work." 

Who does not long to give this hateful idol over 
to the glorious idol-breaker, Jesus Christ. He alone 
can rectify and enlighten the judgment by His word. 
He alone can win the affections. He alone can 
purify the motives and intentions. He alone can 
conquer and reinforce the will. He alone can de- 



52 The Way of the Cross 

throne an usurper who will never abdicate, but 
whose determination to possess Mansoul — in part 
if not altogether — is so intense, that he will fight 
to the last ditch in his hatred to Emmanuel, its right- 
ful Owner, and in his determination to destroy, if 
possible, one of the redeemed ones. 

"Self is the only prison that can ever bind a soul; 
Christ is the only Angel that can the gates unroll. 
And when He comes to set thee free, arise and follow 

fast. 
His way may lie through darkness but it leads to light 

at last." 

This ubiquitous idol Self is, then, to be fought 
against, and pursued through all the intricacies of our 
being, with bitter, unrelenting hate. Self is the very 
citadel of Satan in the heart; it is the great strong- 
hold of the enemy; it is the most subtle, the most 
stubborn, the most tenacious foe with which the 
Holy Spirit has to contend in our nature. "Self," 
says William Law, ''is not only the seat and habita- 
tion, but the very life of sin; the works of the devil 
are all wrought in self; it is his peculiar workshop; 
and therefore Christ is not come as a Saviour from 
sin, as a destroyer of the works of the devil in any of 
us, but so far as self is beaten down and overcome in 
us. Christ's life is not, cannot be, within us, but 
so far as the spirit of the world, self-love, self- 
esteem, and self-seeking are renounced and driven 
out of us." 



The Idol Self 53 

"If you do not crucify Self," this greatest of the 
Mystics goes on to say: "Self will crucify Christ. 
Not as the high priests did many hundreds of years 
ago, nailing His outward humanity to an outward 
Cross, but crucifying afresh the Son of God, the 
Holy Emmanuel, Who is the Christ. Every man 
crucifies Christ as often as he gives way to wrath, 
pride, envy, jealousy, covetousness, disparagement 
of others, evil-speaking and kindred sins. Every 
temper and passion that keeps Christ from being 
fully formed in the soul, is, in the strictest sense of 
the words, a murderer and killer of the Lord of 
Life." 

There is no hope for us but in Jesus Christ. He 
must fight for us. My hateful self is His enemy 
too. He must vanquish it, subdue it, destroy it, 
cast it out, or we can never get the victory. 

"What has stripped the seeming beauty 
From these idols of the earth ? 
Not the sense of right, or duty, 
But the sight of nobler worth. 

"Not the crushing of those idols, 
With its bitter pain and smart, 
But the beaming of His beauty, 
The unveiling of His heart. 

" Tis the look that melted Peter, 
Tis the face that Stephen saw, 
'Tis the heart that wept with Mary 
Can alone from idols draw. 



54 The Way of the Cross 

"Draw, and win, and fill completely, 
Till the cup overflow the brim; 
What have we to do with idols 
Who have companied with Him ?" 



Chapter V: Self and Sin 



Made for Thyself, O God ! 
Made for Thy love, Thy service. Thy delight; 
Made to show forth Thy wisdom, grace, and might, 
Made for Thy praise, whom veiled archangels laud; 
O strange and glorious thought, that we may be 
A joy to Thee! 

Yet the heart turns away 
From this grand destiny of bliss, and deems 
'Twas made for its poor self, for passing dreams. 
Chasing illusions melting day by day; 
Till for ourselves we read on the world's best, 
"This is not rest!" 

Nor can the vain toil cease, 
Till in the shadowy maze of life we meet 
One who can guide our aching, wayward feet 
To find Himself, our Way, our Life, our Peace. 
In Him the long unrest is soothed and stilled ; 
Our hearts are filled. 

?--F. R. Havergah 



Chapter V: Self and Sin 

One of the most striking features of the recent 
teaching of hohness, is the prominence which has 
been given to the absolute necessity of claiming de- 
liverance from the self -life ere the true life of God 
can appear in men. We should be thankful for this, 
for if the Adversary can succeed in persuading us 
that a paste jewel is a diamond of the first water, 
he will be greatly rejoiced while we shall be woefully 
disappointed. The fruit of the Spirit will not be seen 
until in the unity of our Lord's sacrifice we have 
gone down with Him into the dark grave, and heard 
Him say : ''I am the Resurrection and the Life ; he 
that believeth on Me though he were dead, yet shall 
he live." 

Nothing has done so much to discredit the teach- 
ing of holiness as the unlovely, censorious, self- as- 
sertive spirit that has, alas ! been so often displayed 
by those who have professed to know the experience. 
God's cloth-of-gold has sometimes become cloth-of- 
tinsel. The explanation lies very largely in the 
failure, on the one hand, to appropriate complete 
deliverance from every taint of the plague of self, 

57 



58 The Way of the Cross 

and on the other to "put on the Lord Jesus" as the 
unfading robing of the new life. 

More than two hundred and fifty years ago, 
Francis de Sales found it necessary to utter a 
warning word on this subject. "It is a delusion," 
he says, "to seek a sort of ready-made perfection 
which can be assumed like a garment; it is a delu- 
sion, too, to aim at a holiness which costs no trouble, 
although such holiness would no doubt be exceed- 
ingly agreeable to nature. We think that if we could 
discover the secret of sanctity we should become 
saints quickly and easily.'* 

Perhaps it is because we have attempted to make 
saints too quickly and easily that we have had in 
so many cases an experience that has been a dis- 
appointment to the possessor, to the onlookers, and 
above all to God. 

The eye of the world is quick to perceive any in- 
dication of selfishness in those who profess to be 
wholly given up to God, and while it is sometimes 
complained that the standard the world sets up for 
God's saints is too high, it is quite possible that ours 
may be far too low. If we are truly delivered from 
the plague of selfishness, we shall not kick against 
injustice; we shall not stand upon our rights; we 
shall not manifest any self-important bearing, or 
cherish any resentful spirit. We shall not be elated 
when praised, or disheartened when blamed. We 



Self and Sin 59 

shall not thrust ourselves in the best seat in the 
train or tram-car. We shall always be ready to 
wash the feet of the saints; we shall not seek to do 
great things, but gladly do the least and lowliest ser- 
vice. We shall not be offended if others are pre- 
ferred before us; we shall not get feverish about 
the present or worried about the future; we shall 
not seek to get the best of a bargain. We shall never, 
as the Welsh preacher said, "put our hand into 
our Master's till," or so speak of ourselves or our 
achievements as to attract attention to ourselves 
rather than to Jesus Christ. In all these things He 
has left us an example that we should follow His 
steps, and to be truly holy is to be truly Christ-like. 
To be saved from the leprosy of sin is, therefore, to 
be saved from the leprosy of self, and if we are not 
saved from the latter, we are certainly not from the 
former. "Self," says Law, "is the root, the 
branches, the tree of all the evil of our fallen state." 
"Every act of sin," says Westcott, "being in its 
essence self -regarding and self-centred, must be a 
violation of love. Thus lawlessness is, under an- 
other aspect, selfishness: or as it is characterized by 
St. John, 'hatred in opposition to love.' "... "Sin 
and lawlessness are convertible terms. Sin is not 
an arbitrary conception. It is the assertion of the 
selfish will against a paramount authority." "We 
shall never be set free from sin," says Professor 



6o The Way of the Cross 

Beet, "until all our powers are devoted to God. 
For sin arises from the erection of self into the 
supreme power within us. And self will reign until 
a Mightier One occupy the throne it has usurped." 

In order that we may see that this self, which we 
are called upon to hate and renounce, is no phantom, 
we will dwell on one of its principal manifestations, 
self-love. 

The love of ourselves and desire of our own 
happiness, when kept within due bounds, is natural 
and innocent, for it is not natural for a man to 
hate his own flesh. It is when this principle passes 
its appropriate limits that it becomes selfishness. 
Selfishness was the sin of the first angel "who 
rested in himself," as Augustine says, instead of 
referring himself to God. 

The soul, in the exercise of its affections, must 
have a centre of love somewhere. That central 
object has the heart's affections, whatever its char- 
acter may be. The centre of man's love must be 
either in himself, in other creatures, or in God. He 
may love all, but he cannot love more than one su- 
premely. If this love centres in self, if the I is 
the centre of the man's thinking, feeling, willing and 
doing, the man is of course a selfish being, and 
cannot be a holy being, for holiness is the antithesis 
of selfishness. Pure love is not inordinate, that is, it 
is precisely such a measure of love as the object is 



Self and Sin 61 

entitled to. When God has circumcised our heart 
to love Him with all our heart and with all our soul, 
that we may live (Deut. xxx. 6), everything will 
fall into the right position; self will be dethroned, 
we shall love God supremely, and we shall love our- 
selves and other beings just as God would have us. 

If love, when centred on self, is allowed to in- 
crease, it becomes open rebellion and disobedience. 
This is what Augustine calls "the love of self 
carried so far as to despise God." Self-love is then 
the sworn foe of the love of God. No one can 
dispute His claim to be loved absolutely by us in 
Himself and for Himself. As it is contrary to His 
law to allow a creature to prefer self to God as a 
centre, and as it is contrary to His nature not to hate 
sin. He must hate self-love, which is the very soul of 
sin, and the plague spot from which all other sins 
proceed. 

Self-love is not only the enemy of God, it is also 
our own. By turning us away from our only good 
we are deprived of that intimate communion with 
God, without which we can never be at rest, for 
God cannot admit us into the Holy of Holies, the 
place of intimate communion with Himself, until 
self-love has been completely conquered, and He 
has become all in all. 

We must learn to make God what He is in 
Himself — the end of all things; and so to do this 



62 The Way of the Cross 

that at any time we can turn round upon ourselves 
and say of our life, at any moment and in any of 
its outgoings, "God is my end!" Everything that 
does not revolve round Him as its centre is doomed 
to destruction, and will be found to be wood, hay, 
and stubble in the day when every man's work shall 
be made manifest — when the fire shall try every 
man's work of what sort it is. 

Note in Luke xii. 15-21 an illustration of a life 
lived in independence of God. In the self-congratu- 
latory speech which Jesus puts into the mouth of 
this supreme egotist the word "my" occurs five 
times. It was "my fruits," ''my barns," "my corn," 
"m^y goods," "my soul." God was in none of his 
thoughts. Note, also, God's estimate of this self- 
centred life, "Thou fool," and the Saviour's applica- 
tion, "So is everyone that layeth up treasure for 
himself and is not rich toward God." 

There is a similar illustration in the Old Testa- 
ment of one whose name means fool, Nabal (see I 
Sam. XXV. 2). It was "my bread," "my water," 
"my flesh," "my shearers." Nothing may be meant 
when we talk about "my work," "my mission," "my 
address, '"^'^my sermon," "my gift," but the habit is 
a dangerous and insidious one, and unconsciously 
we may be nourishing the hateful self -life, instead 
of refusing to make any provision for it. 



Self and Sin 63 

*'0 my God, selfishness is Thy enemy. It is also 
mine, a mortal enemy bent on my destruction. Thou 
hatest selfishness, and I desire also to hate it. Thou 
hast commanded its destruction as Thou didst com- 
mand the destruction of Agag. Grant me grace not 
to spare this foe, but to permit Thee to wage war 
upon it. If it hungers may I never feed it; if it 
thirsts may I never give it to drink. Undertake for 
me, O my God, and circumcise my heart with Thy 
two-edged sword, that I may henceforth be Thine 
and Thine alone." 



Chapter VI : The Inward Cross 



What is it to be inwardly crucified? It is to have no 
desire, no purpose, no aim but such as comes by Divine 
inspiration, or is attended with the Divine approbation. 
To be inwardly crucified, is to cease to love Mammon in 
order that we may love God, to have no eye for the 
world's possessions, no ear for the world's applause, no 
tongue for the world's envious or useless conversation, 
no terror for the world's opposition. To be inwardly 
crucified is to be, among the things of this world, "a pil- 
grim and a stranger" ; separate from what is evil, sympa- 
thising with what is good, but never with idolatrous 
attachment ; seeing God in all things and all things in God. 
To be inwardly crucified is, in the language of Tauler, "to 
cease entirely from the life of self, to abandon equally 
what we see and what we possess, our power, our knowl- 
edge, and our affections ; that so the soul in regard to any 
action originating in itself is without life, without action, 
and without power, and receives its life, its action, and 
its power from God alone." 

^-Professor Uphdm. 



Chapter VI: The Inward Cross 

The French have a most suggestive proverb: 
''He is not escaped who drags his chain T Gibbon 
tells of one of the Roman emperors who v^as 
brought from prison to the palace, and who sat 
for some hours on the throne with his fetters on his 
limbs. Thousands of those whom God has brought 
out of prison are in much the same condition. They 
are in the palace, but they carry about them vestiges 
of the prison-life. They have escaped from the ty- 
rant's custody, but they are not yet completely free; 
for as the grim gaoler hears the rattle of the links 
sin has forged, and sees some of his fetters upon the 
soul, he still exercises his power, and indulges the 
hope that he may one day seize and entirely enslave 
his former captives. So long as we fail to perceive 
and claim deliverance from the power of in- 
dwelling sin through the wondrous Cross, we 
may give occasional evidence of our kingship, 
but we shall give unmistakable proof of our servi- 
tude. 

Our message is one of complete deliverance. We 
believe that our regal honours are not a fiction, as 

67 



68 The Way of the Cross 

they must have seemed to the king Gibbon tells of, 
but a glorious reality; and so we sing of Him who 
^'breaks the power of cancelled sin/" and of a Cross 
that effects a "double cure." The soul that dares, 
on the warrant of God's word, to claim identification 
with Christ in his death, resurrection, and enthrone- 
ment, proves what it is to be a king in Christ Jesus ; 
to such even the devils are subject, and the princi- 
palities and powers of darkness are made to feel the 
regal power of those who, clad in the armour of 
God, are more than conquerors through Him who 
shows His love to them by indwelling them. Charles 
Wesley sang of those who ''hugged their chains.'* 
There are some who do this still ; but there are many 
others, thank God, who hate them, and who long to 
lose every link that binds them to the conquered 
enemy. 

The Cross of Christ not only enforces holiness, 
but makes holiness possible. Conybeare gives a 
striking translation of Galatians ii. 20: *T have 
been crucified with Christ; it is no more I that live, 
but Christ is living in me; and my outward life 
which still remains, I live in the faith of the Son of 
God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me." 
Here we have both the exterior and the interior 
Cross, or the Cross and its moral effect. There is a 
great difference between realising, "On that Cross 
He was crucified for me," and "On that Cross I am 



The Inward Cross 69 

crucified with Him." The one aspect brings us 
deliverance from sin's condemnation, the other from 
sin's power. We first discover the Cross as coming 
between God and ourselves. That is its substitution- 
ary or judicial aspect. In it Christ must ever be 
alone; into that circle none can enter; when He 
trod that winepress there was none with Him. 

But there is an aspect of the Cross in the passage 
quoted which brings us into moral subjection as 
crucified with Christ. *T am crucified with Christ; 
it is no more I that live, but Christ is living in me." 
Here we see the Cross coming between us and our 
sinful nature, and these words bring us face to face 
with a crucifixion which is experimental in its effects. 
It is a crucifixion, inwrought by the power of the 
Holy Ghost, solely on our compliance with these 
clearly defined conditions, absolute surrender to God, 
absolute dependence on God. It is a continuous 
crucifixion, as the literal translation of St. Paul's 
words shows: ^'I have been and am crucified with 
Christ." 

The death of Christ was not only an atonement 
for sin, but a triumph over sin. By faith we see our 
sins not only on His head for our pardon, but under 
His feet for our deliverance. Multitudes who glory 
in the outward Cross know nothing of the blessed 
inward effect of crucifixion with Christ. They see 
not that by that wondrous Cross they are delivered 



70 The Way of the Cross 

from the power of self and sin, the world, the flesh, 
and the devil. This many of God's children do not 
know, "that their old man was crucified with Him, 
that the body of sin might be done away, so that 
they should no longer be in bondage to sin" (Rom. 
vi.6). 

There must he conformity between Christ and the 
members of His mystical body. How incongruous 
it is for a holy Christ to be leading a company of 
unholy Christians ; or a cross-bearing Christ, a band 
of self-indulgent Christians, whose hearts are often 
towards Egypt, and who shrink from the least 
suffering and self-denial ! It is only they who have 
truly followed Him, knowing experimentally the 
power of the Cross to deliver them from the do- 
minion of sin, who will "have boldness, and not 
shrink with shame before Him at His coming." 

Why hesitate, therefore, to bear the Cross by 
which you may gain the crown? In the Cross is 
salvation, in the Cross is life, in the Cross is safety 
from enemies; in the Cross is that peace which the 
world cannot give, in the Cross is courage, in the 
Cross is joy; in the Cross is the sum of all virtues, 
in the Cross the perfection of holiness. There is no 
salvation for the soul, no hope of eternal life in any- 
thing else. The Cross is the beginning and the end ; 
and all who would live worthily must first die with 
Christ; there is no other way to life and to real 



The Inward Cross 71 

inward peace but the way of the Cross. So says 
Thomas a Kempis in his Imitation of Christ. 

In times of persecution, those who had an experi- 
mental knowledge of this inward crucifixion were 
able to suffer the most terrible outward inflictions 
without shrinking or fear, while many of those who 
knew nothing of this interior Calvary abjured the 
truth to save their lives. Many instances are on 
record of such who afterwards — ^when they had 
learned to tread this royal road — came forward of 
their own will and gave up their bodies to fire and 
death. Let a man ^ be determined to give over his 
hateful self -life to the death of the Cross; let him 
but know the reality of that inward dying; and all 
suffering from without will fail to move him. He 
will never fear the lesser dying because he has 
learned experimentally what the greater dying means. 

How much light this neglect of an experimental 
knowledge throws also on the doleful, shadowed 
death-beds of unsanctified Christians! When we 
have learned the blessedness of dying with Him, 
both to the flesh with its affections and lusts, and to 
the deceitful world, we shall know nothing in our 
last hours of the pains of death which those ex- 
perience whose carnal hearts cling to carnal things. 
With this experimental knowledge of the power of 
the Cross in its relation to indwelling sin, we shall 
face that death which can only touch the outward, 



72 The Way of the Cross 

without any fear, and as cheerfully put off the body 
as we put off our clothes. We fear the body's death 
so little as we have already said, because, for Christ's 
sake, we have loved death with Him so well. 

In physical crucifixion there were three stages. 
The criminal was first arraigned, found guilty, sen- 
tenced to death, and in many cases visited with 
marks of hatred and contempt. Then he was nailed 
to the cross, and finally he died. These three stages 
illustrate the experience of this inward crucifixion. 
First the old nature must be arraigned, found guilty, 
and sentenced, for it is not likely that death to the 
old Adam nature will be appropriated, until we have 
clearly seen it to be deserving of death. Then this 
enemy, which is both God's and ours, must be given 
over into the hands of the Holy Spirit. He will 
not undertake this work without our consent and 
co-operation. "If ye through the Spirit do make to 
die the deeds of the body, ye shall live" (Rom. viii. 
13). The law of death in our sinful members is 
only another form of the law of Christ. It is 
the same Spirit who both killeth and quickeneth. 

Though it is said most expressly that ''we have 
crucified the flesh," it is not said that the moral 
effects of this crucifixion are by any act of ours. 
That is the sole work of the Divine Spirit. It is 
His breath which withers the fruits of evil springing 
out of our sinful nature ; it is His condemning word 



The Inward Cross 73 

that blights the tree of evil in us unto its root. He 
will watch the enemy within us, ready to inflict 
upon it the last stroke that shall finally dispatch it. 
We must not doubt that He will finish the work He 
has begun in us. Crucifixion is not death ; but it is 
unto death, and death will finally be its result, li 
we do our part and spare not our affections and 
lusts; if by identifying faith we reckon the sinning 
Adam as crucified ; and watch and pray, and wait in 
fervent expectation, we shall see the end. And we 
shall see it in this life, for there is no work of 
sanctification beyond the grave; and surely there is 
no necessary connection between the death of the 
body of sin and the death of the physical body. 
The Holy Ghost will cry over our crucified flesh, 
with all its affections and lusts, stilled and ex- 
tinguished for ever, "It is finished." 

The way of the Cross is certainly the way of death 
with Christ. The stoning among the Hebrews, the 
guillotine of the French, the gallows of the English, 
and the cross of the old Roman times, as instruments 
of capital punishment, all mean death. If at the out- 
set of this deeper experience we listen to the voices 
of the tempters, and allow our faith to falter, we 
cannot expect to know this complete and glorious 
deliverance. But if having had a vision of the 
loathsomeness of the old Adam nature, and of its 
power to prevent the incoming and consequent 



74 The Way of the Cross 

outflowing of the risen life of Jesus, we refuse for a 
moment to listen to its pleadings to be allowed to 
come down from the Cross and so save itself, in^ 
shall ourselves be saved to the uttermost. 

The Jews were not content with blows and 
buffetings and scourgings; these were but the fore- 
runners of death, and we may well beware of at- 
tempting to "run with the hare and hunt with the 
hounds," or, in other language, to make a pretence 
of crucifixion with Christ, while at the same time 
we are secretly parleying with the enemy. We shall 
not parley if we resolutely remember that to do so is 
to prolong the power of "the old man," and so de- 
feat the purpose of Jesus Christ, who was mani- 
fested not to buffet or maim, but to "destroy the 
works of the devil," and only by that destruction 
can we fully know what real marriage union with 
Jesus means. 

Hence it follows that our shrinking from the way 
of the Cross, and our fainting on that way, even 
when we have begun to tread it, arises from ig- 
norance of the blessedness to which this pathway 
leads. The most joyous moment in the life of the 
bride ought to be the moment when she loses her 
own name and self-dependence at the marriage-altar, 
taking her husband's name instead of her own, and 
merges her life in his; and the most blissful moment 
in our life ought to be that in which we, by taking 



The Inward Cross 75 

up our cross, renounce our right to self -ownership, 
and begin to reckon ourselves dead to self, to sin, 
and to the world, through the Cross of Jesus Christ. 

"Oh, sacred union with the Perfect Mind, 
Transcendent bliss, which Thou alone canst give ; 
How blest are they this Pearl of Price who find, 
And, dead to earth, have learnt in Thee to live. 

"Thus in Thine arms of love, O God, I lie, 
Lost, and for ever lost to all but Thee. 
My happy soul, since it hath learnt to die, 
Hath found new life in Thine Infinity. 

"Go then, and learn this lesson of the Cross, 
And tread the way that saints and prophets trod : 
Who, counting life and self and all things loss. 
Have found in inward death the life of God." 



Chapter VII : The Victims of the Cross 



The great truth of Christianity, the great truth of 
Christ, is that sin is unnatural, and has no business in a 
human life. The birth of Christ proclaimed that in one 
tone : His cross proclaimed it in another ! And that which 
is unnatural is not by any necessity permanent. The 
struggle of all nature is against the unnatural — to dislodge 
it and cast it out. That struggle pervades the world. It 
is going on in every clod of earth, in every tree, in every 
star, and in the soul of man. Intensely sensitive to feel 
the presence of evil as he never felt it before, the Chris- 
tian instantly and intensely knows that evil is a stranger 
and an intruder in his life. The wonder is not that it 
should some day be cast out: the wonder is that it should 
ever have come in. —Phillips Brooks. 

A very dear and intimate friend of mine related to me 
a dream which had been blessed by God to the redemption 
of his own father. The father dreamed that he was a 
hare, and a hare he was. So real and so graphic was the 
consciousness of the dream, that he felt he could almost 
smell the dewy turnip-tops of the fields amongst which he 
moved. 

Suddenly he heard the cry of the hounds. He pricked 
his ears, listened, and bolted full pace across the fields. 
The hounds drew nearer and nearer, and came at last so 
close to him that he could feel their hot breath. Then 
he found that he was leaving the green pastures and was 
reaching bare and rugged heights; and just when he had 
reached those bare and rocky heights he became conscious 
that his pursuers were not hounds. They were his sins, 
and he was a flying soul! Away up, away up, away up 
towards the summit he saw a cave, and terrified beyond 
measure he made for the cave and then turned round. 
The entrance to the cave was flooded with a most unearthly 
light, and just in the centre of the opening there shone 
resplendently a Cross, standing between him and the awful 
things that pursued him. He awoke, and behold, it was 
a dream. But by the power of the dream he was re- 
deemed. Dr. J. H. Jowett. 



Chapter VII: The Victims of 
the Cross 

"O that the fire from heaven might fall, 
Our sins its ready victims find, 
Seize on our sins, and burn up all, 
Nor leave the least remains behind!" 

We have already pointed out that the Cross means 
deliverance through death. It fnay mean a suffer- 
ing, lingering, protracted deliverance through the 
faltering and failure of our faith; there may be many 
convulsive struggles, but, sooner or later, deliver- 
ance will follow continuous persistent faith. We 
use the words continuous and persistent advisedly, 
for they cannot expect a speedy deliverance, who, 
at the solicitations of the enemy, withdraw them- 
selves, by drooping or intermittent faith, from the 
power of the Cross. This playing at the cruci- 
fixion of the flesh, with its passions and lusts, ex- 
plains the unsatisfactory experience of multitudes, 
who by this means frustrate the grace of God. 

God designs us to share the life of the risen Christ 
in all its heavenly beauty. We can only do this on 
the conditions so clearly revealed in His Word, 

79 



8o The Way of the Cross 

conditions which so completely harmonise with His 
character and working. What are they? "We 
were buried therefore with Him through baptism 
into death: that like as Christ was raised from the 
dead through the glory of the Father, so we also 
might walk in newness of life. For if we have be- 
come united Him by the likeness of His death, 
we shall be also by the likeness of His resurrection ; 
knowing this, that our old man was crucified with 
Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that 
so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; for 
He that hath died is justified from sin" (Rom. vi. 

4-7). 

The principal thing for us to know, is that "our 
old man" has been crucified with Christ, that he is 
one of the victims of the Cross. A few expositions 
of the terms employed in these verses may be of 
value here. Dr. David Brown, in his admirable 
handbook on this Epistle, says " 'our old man.' means 
*our old selves,' all that we were in our old unre- 
generate state before union with Christ. Dr. Brown 
thinks that by *the body of sin' the whole principle of 
sin in our fallen nature is meant — its most intellectual 
and spiritual, equally with its lower and more cor- 
poreal, features." ^ The word rendered ''destroyed," 

^ The late Bishop of Durham, in his exposition of the Epistle to the 
Romans, regards the expression "the body of sin" as meaning the seat 
and vehicle of conquering temptation; the body viewed as sin's strong- 
hold, medium or residence. On the Cross, Christ so dealt with our fallen 
state, that the body, the home and haunt of sin, might be "cancelled." 



The Victims of the Cross 81 

IS a favourite one with Paul, used only once by any 
other New Testament writer, but twenty-five times 
by him. A reference to some of the passages in 
which it is so used may be helpful — I Cor. vi. 13; 
XV. 24, 26; 2 Cor. iii. 7, 11, 13, 14; Eph. ii. 15; 
2 Thess. ii. 8. The common-sense uses of this same 
Greek word, though variously translated in these 
passages, points 10 one conclusion and to one only. 

Marcus Rainsford says: ''By our 'old man' the 
Apostle means our natural self, with all its principles 
and motives, its outgoings, actions, corruptions, and 
belongings; not as God made, but as sin and Satan 
and self have marred it. The old Adam never 
changes; no medicine can heal the disease, no oint- 
ment can mollify the corruption; it can only be got 
rid of by death." 

Dean Alford defines our "old man" as our former 
self-personality before our new birth — opposed to 
the "new man" or "new creature." He says, more- 
over, "that as the death of Christ was by crucifixion, 
the Apostle uses the same expression of our death to 
our former sinful self, which is not only put to death 
by virtue of, but also in the likeness of Christ's 
death — as signal, as entire, as much a cutting off and 
putting to shame and pain/' When it is remembered 

"put down;" "deposed," so "kept in abeyance," as to be no more the 
fatal door to admit temptation. The presence and power of the Risen 
Lord will enable us to say "no" to every temptation, and to deny every 
claim of the tyrant that formerly held dominion over us. This view is 
supported by the words that follow: "that henceforth we should do no 
bondservice to sin." 



82 The Way of the Cross 

that Christ's was no fictitious execution, that He 
really died ; that when the soldier thrust in his spear 
there was no lingering life to respond, it will be seen 
how complete is the purchased and promised de- 
liverance from the plague of sin, which a great 
preacher has called "a foul, slimy protrusion into 
God's universe." 

This, then, is the victim, whether it be called 
"the body of sin," or ''the flesh," or "the carnal 
mind," or "the sin that dwelleth in me," or "the old 
man;" it has many names, it has but one character 
and but one cure, and that is death. It is unmitigated 
enmity to God, for "The carnal mind is enmity 
against God" (Rom. viii. 7). It is hateful to God, 
He can take no pleasure in any part of that nature 
which is under the curse, however pleasing and at- 
tractive it may be to man: "They that are of the 
flesh cannot please God" (verse 8). It is unimprov- 
able, incorrigible, incurable. Cultured, educated, 
and encouraged; or discouraged and threatened, its 
nature remains unchangeable. "It is not subject to 
the law of God, neither indeed can be" (verse 7). 
There remains, then, no remedy but that v/hich God 
has provided — condemnation, crucifixion, death with 
Christ. 

The Scriptures speak of the seed of the flesh, the 
will of the flesh, the mind of the flesh, the wisdom of 
the flesh, the purposes of the flesh, the confidence of 



The Victims of the Cross 83 

the flesh, the filthiness of the flesh, the workings of 
the flesh, the warring of the flesh, the glorying of 
the flesh. 

All man's powers, reasonings, emotions, and will 
are naturally under the power of the flesh. What- 
ever the fleshly mind may devise or plan — however 
fair its show may be, and however much men may 
glory in it — has no value in the sight of God. The 
flesh, with its thinking and willing and effort, is 
therefore a victim of the Cross. We see the neces- 
sity of deliverance from what are commonly called 
the sins of the flesh, but how seldom do we include 
our powers to reason and think and plan. Alas! 
we often have confidence in these, and we are woe- 
fully discouraged because the Spirit does not pros- 
per what the flesh has planned. Is not our worship 
of God often in the flesh? Are not plans and de- 
vices resorted to for obtaining money for the empty 
treasury of the Church, which bear upon their very 
surface the marks of the flesh, and which are so 
displeasing to God, that the workings of His Spirit 
are well-nigh quenched ? It is little short of mockery, 
in many instances, to ask God's blessing on what our 
own heart tells us is the planning and working of the 
flesh, and which under the most beautiful and at- 
tractive guise can never be anything but offensive to 
Him. 

"Our natural life/' says Godet, "and all the 



§4 The Way of the Cross 

faculties with which it is endowed, must be sacrificed, 
immolated, renounced. Otherwise, after having 
flourished for a moment, with more or less of satis- 
faction, it perishes and withers for ever. This law 
applies to a pure being and to his lawful tastes. All 
that is not given to God by an act of voluntary im- 
molation bears within it the germ of death." 

There is a subtle temptation, as in the case of 
Saul, to destroy the worthless and keep alive the 
hest ; in other words, to destroy the gross and spare 
the refined manifestations of evil. But when we 
claim to have fulfilled the commandment of the 
Lord, the searching question comes to many of us 
with the same terrible power as it must have come 
to the disobedient king: *'What meaneth then this 
Heating of the sheep in mine ears ; and the lowing of 
the oxen, which I hear?" 

That which is utterly destroyed can neither low 
nor bleat. It means then, nothing less than death 
to every doomed thing. Death to vanity, pride, 
covetousness, unsympathetic coldness, ambition, 
temper, impatience, fear, and doubt; anything and 
everything that appertains to the old man, and 
which must be put off ere we can put on the new. 

Have we consented to the nailing of this victim 
to the Cross? If we have, deliverance is certain, 
for the flesh received its death-stroke on Calvary. 
^*Sin is smitten with the lightning of His anger. 



The Victims of the Cross 85 

What was then accompHshed in principle when *One 
died for all/ is realised in point of fact when faith 
makes His death ours, and its virtue passes into 
the soul. The scene of the Cross does its blessed 
inward work. The wounds which pierced the Re- 
deemer's flesh and spirit now pierce our consciences. 
It is through crucifixion with Christ the soul enters 
into communion with its risen Saviour, and learns 
to live His life. Nor is its sanctification complete 
till it is 'formed unto the likeness of His death' 
(Phil. iii. 10). The 'old man' with all his train of 
'passions and lusts,' has been nailed upon the Cross 
of Calvary for every believing heart. The flesh has 
no right to power for a single hour. De jure it is 
dead — dead in the reckoning of faith, and die it 
must in all who are of Christ Jesus." 

"If Christ would live and reign in me, 

I must die; 
With Him I crucified must be; 

I must die; 
Lord drive the nails, nor heed the groans, 
My flesh may writhe and make its moans. 
But in this way, and this alone 

I must die. 

"When I am dead, then Lord to Thee 

I shall live; 
My time, my strength, my all to Thee 

I shall give. 
O may the Son now make me free ! 
Here Lord I give my all to Thee; 
For time and for eternity 

I will live." 



Chapter VIII: The World and the 
Cross 



I think that this world, at its prime and perfection, 
when it is come to the top of its excellency and to the 
bloom, might be bought with a halfpenny ; and that it would 
scarce wei2:h the worth of a drink of water. There is 
nothing better than to esteem it our crucified idol (that 
is, dead and slain), as Paul did. Then let pleasures be 
crucified, and court and honour be crucified. And since 
the apostle saith that the world is crucified to him, we may 
put this world to the hanged man's doom, and to the gal- 
lows: and who will give much for a hanged man? As 
little should we give for a hanged and crucified world. 
Yet fools are pulling it off the gallows and contending 
for it. 

— Samuel Rutherford. 

What then is the world, and what is it to be, worldly 
or unworldly? Worldliness is a spirit, a temper. It is 
not so much an act as an attitude. It is a pose, 
a posture. It is a certain disposition towards God. 
It is a certain inclination, a certain aspect of the soul. 
Worldliness is human activity with God left out. World- 
liness is life without heavenly callings, life without ideals, 
life without heights. Worldliness recognizes nothing of 
the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Worldliness has 
no hill country. Worldliness is horizontal life. Worldli- 
ness has nothing of the vertical in it. It has ambition; it 
has no aspirations. Its motto is success, not holiness. It 
is always saying, "Onward," never "Upward." A worldly 
man or woman is a man or woman who never says, "I will 
lift up mine eyes unto the hills." 

— jDr. /. H. Jowett 



Chapter VIII: The World and 
the Cross 

"Whatever passes as a cloud between 
The mental eye of faith and things unseen, 
Causing that brighter world to disappear, 
Or seem less lovely, or its hope less dear, 
This is our world, our idol, though it bear 
Affection's impress, or devotion's air." 

The Galatian Epistle has been called the cruci- 
fixion Epistle. In chapter ii. 20, Paul says that his 
old self was crucified with Christ; in chapter v. 
24, he says that his *'flesh with its passions and 
lusts" has been nailed to the Cross; and now in 
chapter vi. 14, he says that the world is crucified 
to him, and he is crucified to the world. 

We read of ''the spirit of the world" (i Cor. 
ii. 12), of ''the fashion of the world" (i Cor. vii. 
31), of the course of this world (Eph. ii. 2), and of 
the prince of this world (John xiv. 30). There is a 
wisdom of the world which is not the wisdom of 
Christ; a ruler of the world who is Christ's and 
man's greatest foe; a judgment of the world in 
which men are in danger of being involved. We 

89 



90 The Way of the Cross 

are told that the world is passing away, and that if 
we love it and the things that are in it, the love of 
the Father is not in us (i John ii. 15-17). Jesus 
prepared His disciples for its hatred, and told them 
this would prove they were not of it, for the world 
cannot hate itself* (John xv. 18, 19). He further 
taught them that if they testify of it, as He ever did, 
that its works are evil, the world will hate them as 
it hated Him (John vii. 7). Despite the inveterate 
hatred of the world, Christ's disciples are not to be 
afraid, for He tells them that He has overcome it 
(John xvi. 33) ; and His servant John assures those 
to whom he wrote, that "greater is He that is in 
them, than he that is in the world" (i John iv. 4) ; 
that whatsoever is born of God overcometh the 
world ; and that this is the victory that overcometh, 
even their faith in its conqueror, Jesus the Son 
of God ( I John v. 4, 5 ) . 

What then is this world, which in the estimation 
of Paul was nothing better than a crucified felon? 
For be it remembered when we speak of the Cross, 
that in the early days of Christianity, none of those 
beautiful* associations with which we are familiar 
had gathered round it. To us it is not only sugges- 
tive of a fact, but it is also a memorial of nearly two 
thousand years of history. The love and admiration 
with which we are familiar were unknown to the 
Apostle. In his day it was the sign and symbol of 



The World and the Cross 91 

ignominy, and far more odious and suggestive than 
the word "gallows" is to us. 'There is, indeed," as 
one has said, **no word among us that is signijficant 
of the deep and acknowledged and universal detesta- 
tion that belonged to the Cross." 

The world ''consists of those who are attached to 
sensible objects, and who place in them their sole 
happiness ; who have a horror of poverty, suffering, 
and humiliation, and who look upon such things as 
real evils from which they must flee, and against 
which they must protect themselves at any cost ; who, 
on the contrary, have the greatest regard for riches, 
pleasures, and honours; who consider these things 
as real and solid good ; who desire them and pursue 
them with extreme eagerness, without caring what 
means they use to obtain them; who fight with one 
another over the things of this life; who envy one 
another, and try to take from each other what they 
have not themselves ; who only value another person, 
or despise him, in proportion as he possesses or 
does not possess these perishable things. In one 
word, who found upon the acquisition and enjoy- 
ment of temporal things all their principles, all their 
code of morality, and the entire plan of their con- 
duct." 

It is any form of life or government — political, 
educational, social, or religious — which does not 
place God pre-eminently first. To quote the language 



92 The Way of the Cross 

of Dr. Dale : To be worldly is "to permit the higher 
law to which we owe allegiance, the glories and ter- 
rors of that invisible universe which is revealed to 
faith, our transcendent relations to the Father of 
spirits through Christ Jesus our Lord, to be over- 
borne by inferior interests, and by the opinion and 
practices of those in whom the life of God does not 
dwell. It is to regulate our life by public opinion in- 
stead of by religious principle; to do as others do 
without inquiring why they do it; to follow the 
crowd without inquiring where exactly they are 
going.'' 

Strongly do we recommend the readers of these 
pages to ponder Faber's searching and powerful 
description of the world in his "Creator and Crea- 
ture." He says : "The world is not altogether mat- 
ter, nor yet altogether spirit. It is not man only, 
nor Satan only, nor is it exactly sin. It is an infec- 
tion, an inspiration, an atmosphere, a life, a colour- 
ing matter, a pageantry, a fashion, a taste, a witch- 
ery. None of these names suit it, and all of them 
suit it. Its power over the human creation is terrific, 
its presence ubiquitous, its deceitfulness incredible. 
We are living in it, breathing it, acting under its in- 
fluence, being cheated by its appearances, and un- 
warily admitting its principles." 

The world has its own prince, its own court, its 
own council, its own laws, its own principles, its 



The World and the Cross 93 

own maxims, its own literature. It is the counterfeit 
of the Church of God, and the devil's principal 
weapon for lowering and poisoning the heavenly life 
in the individual and in the Church, and for antago- 
nising and destroying the work of the Holy Spirit. 
It is in our pulpits, choirs, and pews. It is all the 
more seductive because it makes an exterior profes- 
sion of Christianity, and with infinite cleverness 
seeks to reconcile its own evil maxims with the 
doctrines of Christianity. It is far more to be 
dreaded than the undisguised attacks of the devil, 
for he urges his victims to glaring positive breaches 
of the Divine commands. The passions of the flesh 
in a similar manner impel to such sins as bulk prom- 
inently in the eyes of men, and startle them by their 
iniquity; but the spirit of the world fastens itself in 
diabolical subtilty upon those who pride themselves 
upon their spirituality and devotion, and who con- 
sider themselves so free from its hateful presence 
that they are offended if for a moment it is suggested 
that they are under its power. This is its great 
triumph, and when we laugh to scorn the suggestion 
that Madame Bubble will ever ensnare us in her 
toils, we are already among her dupes. 

St. Paul was once among her victims. He counted 
the pride of birth and religion, worldly honour, 
wealth and pleasure, with the good opinion of men, 
to be gain ; but in the light of the Cross his eyes had 



94 The Way of the Cross 

been opened to see the world's true character, and 
what things were once gain, he now counted loss 
for Christ. Instead of looking to it for happiness, 
courting its smiles, and dreading its frowns, he re- 
garded it as a condemned malefactor nailed to the 
Cross. Its wealth, honours, and pleasures could not 
seduce him, nor could all its forces of hostility ter- 
rify him into a renunciation, or even concealment, 
of one of the doctrines of the Cross (Gal. vi. 12). 

To him it would be as absurd for a person to for- 
feit the favour of a much-loved sovereign, who had 
every right to his affections and allegiance, by seek- 
ing to secure a favourable glance from the eye of 
a worthless felon expiring on a cross. The same 
kind of horror that filled the mind of the Jew at the 
thought of a crucified malefactor, filled Paul's heart 
as he saw the snare into which the Galatian Chris- 
tians were in danger of falling, that of making the 
object of God's curse the object of their regard and 
consideration. 

The Cross had revealed to him such sources of 
enjoyment, and the crucified and risen Lord had 
so taken possession of Paul's entire being, as to lead 
him to say: "Yea, doubtless, I count all things but 
loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ 
Jesus my Lord : for Whom I have suffered the loss 
of all things, and do count them but dung, that I 
may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having 



The World and the Cross 95 

mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but 
that which is through the faith of Christ, the 
righteousness which is of God by faith; that I may 
know Him, and the power of His resurrection, 
and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made 
conformable imto His death; if by any means I 
might attain unto the resurrection of the dead" 
(Phil. iii. 8-11). 

Just what the world was to St. Paul — an object of 
malediction with which he could have no connection, 
no association, no relationship — he was to the men 
of the world. He was to them an object of contempt, 
aversion, and hatred. He and his brethren were 
made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels and to 
men. "We are fools," said he, "for Christ's sake, 
but ye are wise in Christ : we are weak, but ye are 
strong : ye have glory, but we have dishonour. Even 
unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, 
and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain 
dwelling-place; and we toil, working with our own 
hands : being reviled, we bless : being persecuted, we 
endure : being defamed, we intreat : we are made as 
the filth of the world, the off-scouring of all things 
even until now" (i Cor. iv. 10-13). 

What is our relationship to the world, and what 
is its attitude towards ourselves? By these ques- 
tions the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. 
Some of us read, years ago, of a mountain of load- 



96 The Way of the Cross 

stone which drew by its tremendous power of at- 
traction every piece of iron that was brought within 
the range of its influence. Ships at sea, passing 
near the shore of that land where the mountain 
was, felt its force on their anchors and chains and 
bars. At first their approach to the mountain was 
scarcely perceptible. There was a declining from 
their course, which excited very little apprehension. 
But the attraction gradually became stronger, until, 
with ever increasing velocity, the vessel was drawn 
closer. Then the very bolts and nails started from 
the vessel's beams and planks, and fastened them- 
selves on the sides of the mountain, the vessel, of 
course, falling to pieces and becoming a total wreck. 

This legend may aptly illustrate our own peril, as 
it certainly illustrates the peril of the Church to-day ; 
and the time has come when, with no uncertain 
sound, warning voices should be lifted up through- 
out the land, and compromise and concession with 
the world be absolutely prohibited in every shape 
and form. 

"All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and 
the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life, is not 
of the Father, but is of the world. And the world 
passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that 
doeth the will of God abideth for ever" (i John 
ii. 16, 17). This is St. John^s resume of all sin. By 
the first of these definitions of worldliness — "the lust 



The World and the Cross 97 

of the Hesh^' — we understand the bodily appetites out 
of order or in excess. Until we have learned the 
great doctrine of the crucifixion of the flesh with its 
passions and lusts, we shall find it impossible to 
bring ourselves within the limits of God's appoint- 
ment and law. Our first aim must be to achieve 
through faith victory over this inward world; over 
every propensity and appetite that sin has rendered 
inordinate and rebellious. There are also refined 
lusts of the flesh — a fondness for luxuries, and an 
unwillingness to forego them. Tauler forcefully 
says : "As the old serpent laid low our first parents 
through gluttony, so his weapons are easily turned 
aside through soberness. We ought to take food in 
the same way as some take medicine, with such 
moderation that it may help us to serve God; and 
with such gratitude, that at each single morsel praise 
may redound to our Creator." 

Then there are "the lusts of the flesh" in the forms 
of softness and self-indulgence. The unwillingness 
to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. 
The day's work is over, and the slippered feet are 
put to the fire. How do we take any disturbance of 
our ease? How do we treat our self-denying Lord, 
when, in the guise of some poor widow or homeless 
wanderer, He comes to our door and asks for 
s)niipathyj or for food or clothing? 

The "lust of the eyes." Think over the grim 



98 The Way of the Cross 

catalogue of Old Testament saints, and of New 
Testament saints too, who have fallen through the 
lust of the eyes. Let us not gratify this desire in any 
measure in even glancing at the poisoned pictures 
and the poisoned literature which are thrust upon us 
to-day, and which are utterly unworthy of admission 
into Christian homes. It is a thousand times better 
to keep the heart pure, to have "nothing between," 
even though it means ignorance of a book over 
which the world has, for a few brief days, gone mad. 

The lust of the eyes also points to the universal 
sin of insisting on something visible and tangible, 
of depending on the creature rather than on the 
Creator, instead of having the spirit of Moses who 
"endured as seeing Him Who is invisible." How 
many, unlike Abram, who, when called of God, 
went out, "not knowing whither he went," are always 
longing to see their way. We may live where the 
things that are unseen shall be the most reed to us, 
and where we shall know that even our afflictions 
"work for us a far more exceeding and eternal 
weight of glory, while we look not at the things 
which are seen, but at the things which are unseen" 
(2 Cor. iv. 18), 

We may be comparatively free 'from the lust of 
the flesh and the lust of the eyes, and yet under the 
power of the world in the third aspect in which 
St. John regards it. ''The vainglory of life"' is the 



The World and the Cross 99 

pomp and pride that exults in itself and does not 
give the glory to God. It is the heart fastening upon 
tangible objects, wealth, respect, and homage from 
without. There are scores of plans devised solely 
to foster these sinful propensities, some coarse and 
some so refined that there is about them the outline 
of beauty, the harmony of colour and sound, the 
gracefulness of movement, the charm of sympathy : 
but in them all God would be such an intrusion, 
His presence would be so unwelcome, that they are 
immediately branded, beautiful though they be, as 
''not of the Father but of the world." This is the 
true touchstone in our choice of food, dress, reading, 
and recreation; in all our buying and selling; in all 
our planning even for God's work is this the will 
of Godf 

How afraid many are to brave the frown of others, 
when duties to which they are called come into 
conflict with what the world calls etiquette! We 
must be saved from the desire to be thought well 
of by unsanctified Christians, who think far more of 
the maxims of society than they do of Christ; then 
we shall be the true courtiers, having learned how to 
deport ourselves in the school of grace. They only 
are God's gentlemen and gentlewomen who have 
claimed this complete deliverance from the spirit of 
the world. 

When some terrible epidemic is raging, it is the 



100 The Way of the Cross 

constitution that is debilitated that takes the con- 
tagion. The healthy man is possessed of a vitality 
that enables him to walk through the streets where 
disease is rioting, and throw off the disease germs 
by the power of an abundant physical life. World- 
liness only flourishes when the vitality of the Church 
is low, and, as the Church is composed of units, 
when the vitality of the individual is low. The 
strong, exuberant overflowing life of Christ is our 
only safeguard, and the only secret of victory. 

By appropriating first the victory of the Cross 
and then Christ's mighty resurrection-life, we shall 
be able to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. 
The religion of Jesus Christ knows nothing of 
bringing down her standards to suit the spirit of the 
age. It does not say to the business man whose 
surroundings are peculiarly trying: "Your case is 
one of unusual difficulty, and I will waive part of 
my demands." It says to every man, though the 
atmosphere in which he lives is impregnated with 
this enervating poison, though he is surrounded 
with men whose ways are as crooked and tricky as 
the adversary can make them, "Be separate!" 
"Touch not the unclean thing!" "Keep yourself 
unspotted from the world !" 



Chapter IX : The Gate of the Cross 



A Pilgrim once, so runs an ancient tale, 
Old, worn, and spent, crept down a shadowed vale. 
On either hand rose mountains bleak and high; 
Chill was the gusty air, and dark the sky ; 
The path was rugged, and his feet were bare ; 
His faded cheek was seamed by pain and care; 
His heavy eyes upon the ground were cast. 
And every step seemed feebler than the last. 

The valley ended where a naked rock 

Rose sheer from earth to heaven, as if to mock 

The Pilgrim who had crept that toilsome way; 

But while his dim and weary eyes essay 

To find an outlet in the mountain side, 

A ponderous sculptured door he spied, 

And, tottering toward it with fast failing breath, 

Above the portal read, "The Gate of Death." 

He could not stay his feet that led thereto; 
It yielded to his touch, and passing through, 
He came into a world all b/ight and fair; 
Blue were the heavens, and balmy was the air; 
And lo! the blood of youth was in his veins. 
And he was clad in robes that held no stains 
Of his long pilgrimage. Amazed, he turned; 
Behold! a golden door behind him burned 
In that fair sunlight, and his wondering eyes. 
Now lustreful and clear as those new skies. 
Free from the mists of age, of care, of strife. 
Above the portal read, "The Gate of Life." 



Chapter IX: The Gate of the 
Cross 

Sir Noel Paton*s beautiful picture, "Death the 
Gate of Life," has a significance other than that 
which seems to have been in the mind of the artist. 
The weary knight, wounded in his conflict with evil, 
has passed through the Valley of the Shadow of 
Death, and kneels in deep humility at the entrance 
of the world of light, and life. He has put off his 
helmet with the crest of falcon wings and peacock's 
feathers — emblems of worldly ambition and pride. 
The belt and sword which are cast aside, and the 
armour which is falling off, indicate the renuncia- 
tion of his own strength. The overblown hemlock, 
rank weeds, and withered branches on this side of 
the veil speak of sin's deadly poison and of disap- 
pointed hopes, while the white lilies and wild roses 
on the other side tell of the purity and joy which 
blossom there. The permanence of the life he is 
entering is indicated by a clear and steadfast star 
which shines in the sky, while the waning moon on 
the horizon typifies the mutability and evanescence 

of the life he is leaving behind. 

103 



104 The Way of the Cross 

All this symbolism applies as accurately to the 
spiritual as to the physical death. To attempt to 
conquer our sinful nature by doing battle against 
it is weary work, as many of us know. And while 
men age and even die in the strife with evil, sin never 
dies of old age. True, it changes its character, 
a new viceroy takes the place of the old one, but the 
government remains the same. At the transition- 
point from one age of human life to another, a cer- 
tain form of sin has to declare itself vanquished, 
but it is a victory over one of the outposts of sin, 
rather than over the tyrant in the citadel. Men have 
greatly rejoiced, for example, that the habit of in- 
temperance has been conquered in their life, but 
that peculiarly abhorrent form of vice has often 
been succeeded by another, less abhorrent, perhaps, 
but none the less deadly. The capture of an ad- 
vanced guard of sin has only challenged a new move- 
ment on the part of the enemy, and the slave of 
intemperance has become, all unconsciously, the 
slave of covetousness. 

Well is it for us, if, like the knight in the picture, 
baffled, wounded, and weary after years of unsuc- 
cessful conflict, our pride conquered, and our own 
strength renounced, we are found kneeling at the 
door of that world which can only be entered through 
death-union with Jesus Christ. For when we come 
to a condition of utter bankruptcy, and, deeply con- 



The Gate of the Cross 105 

scious of our poverty and powerlessness, cry out in 
abject despair, "O wretched man that I am, w^ho 
shall deliver me?" we are at the threshold of deliver- 
ance. It will not be long before we begin to sing 
the victorious song: 'There is therefore now no 
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. For 
the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath 
made me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 
viii. I, 2). 

In giving an account of the terms proposed by 
Diabolus for the surrender of Mansoul, made 
through his ambassador Mr. Loth-to- Stoop, Bunyan 
brings home the intense anxiety of Satan to retain 
some hold upon Mansoul. 'Then Mr. Loth-to- 
Stoop said again, "Sir, behold the condescension of 
my master ! He says he will be content if he may but 
have some place assigned to him in Mansoul as a 
place to live in privately, and you shall be lord of all 
the rest!" Then said Emmanuel, ''All that the 
Father giveth Me shall come to Me, and of all that 
He giveth Me, I will lose nothing, no, not a hoof or 
a hair. I will not, therefore, grant him, no, not the 
least corner in Mansoul to dwell in. I will have it 
all to Myself. And blessed for ever be His Name, 
for His gracious purpose and promise!" 

But it is only on the conditions we have sought 
to explain and enforce in the preceding chapters 
that He can have us all to Himself. There can be 



106 The Way of the Cross 

no revocation of the decree, "the soul that sinneth 
it shall die." We have to choose whether in union 
with the first Adam it shall be our own death, with 
the darkness and awful separation from God which 
it involves; or whether by our identification with 
the second Adam, we shall be reckoned dead in His 
death and living in His life : "Because we thus judge, 
that One died for all, therefore all died; and He 
died for all, that they which live should no longer 
live unto themselves, but unto Him Who for their 
sakes died and rose again" (2 Cor. v. 15). 

"Our separation from sin is the result of His 
death. We may therefore overleap the ages and say, 
on that Cross my old life of sin came to an end : the 
nails which pierced His sacred hands and feet de- 
stroyed my old self. Christ and we were separated 
from sin by the same mysterious death; and there- 
fore we are dead with Christ." . . . "As we look 
back to Christ's death upon the Cross, and remember 
that in the moment in which He bowed His head He 
escaped completely from the enemies to whose as- 
sault, for our sakes. He had exposed Himself, we 
venture to believe that we are sharers of that deliver- 
ance, that upon His Cross we have ourselves escaped 
from the dominion of sin ; and we also venture to be- 
lieve that by faith in Christ we already share the 
triumph of our risen Lord over all His enemies and 
ours. Our faith is realised in actual experience. 



The Gate of the Cross 107 

Henceforth His Cross stands between us and our 
sins : and through His empty grave we enter a life of 
victory." 

The poetical parable at the commencement of this 
chapter is no fantasy of the brain. Fellowship with 
Jesus in His death and risen life admits the believer, 
as many can testify, into a bright world where the 
heavens are blue and the air balmy. A world in 
which the inhabitants have learned the secret of 
perpetual 3^outh; where they wear stainless robes; 
where the lustre comes back to the eyes, and the 
mists of age and care and strife have for ever passed 
away. 

This is the unchanging law of the Christian life, 
for "the only way out of any world where we are is 
by death" — for the Christian therefore by Christ's 
death. It is a law which meets us at the very 
beginning of life in Christ, and as we walk in the 
light of God we shall have continuous discoveries of 
wealthy places, entrance into which is invariably 
through death, or in other words through ceasing 
to have fellowship with certain forms of life. 

If you examined a dead leaf-stalk, says Lilias 
Trotter in her lovely parables, through a microscope, 
you would find that the old channel is silted up by a 
barrier invisible to the naked eye. On last year's 
leaf the plant has shut the door, condemning it to 
decay, and soon without further effort the stalk 



108 The Way of the Cross 

loosens, the winds of God play around it, and it falls 
away. The Cross of Christ shuts off the life of sin. 
"Our old man is crucified with Him, that the body 
of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should 
not serve sin : for he that is dead is freed from sin" 
(Rom. vi. 6). Like the silted-up channel, the Cross 
stands a blessed invisible barrier between us and 
sinning as we "reckon" it there: that is, hold it 
there by faith and will. The sap^ — the will — ^the 
"ego" withdraws from the former existence its 
aims and desires, and sends them into the new. And 
the first hour that the sap begins to withdraw, and 
the leaf-stalk begins to silt up, the leaf's fate is 
sealed. The plant never goes back, as so many 
Christians do, upon its resolve to dispense with the 
old foliage. It is this "steadfast continuance" which 
is the secret of victory. The sap which is withdrawn 
from the old is freely given for the nourishment of 
the new, and is only withdrawn for this purpose, for 
the gate of the Cross is ever the gate of life. 

There is only one place where you can graft a 
branch upon a tree ; it is where both the graft and the 
tree have been cut and the life is flowing out. But 
let there be close contact between them — for the 
smallest filament of wrapping round the graft will 
prevent the life of the tree from flowing into it — 
and what is the result? The little slip becomes a 
partaker of the strength and beauty of the stem, and 



The Gate of the Cross 109 

as it bears leaf and fruit it seems to say: "I live, 
nevertheless not I, but the tree liveth in me, and the 
life I now live in foliage and fruit, I live by faith in 
the shaft of the tree." So to both graft and tree the 
gate of the cross is the gate of life. 



Chapter X: The Fruit of the Cross 



For all through life I see a cross, 

Where sons of God yield up their breath ; 

There is no gain except by loss. 

There is no life except by death; 

There is no vision but by faith. 

No glory but in bearing shame. 

No justice but in taking blame; 

And that Eternal Passion saith 

Be emptied of glory and right and name. 

— Anon, 

The seed must die if a harvest is to spring from it. 
That is the law for all moral and spiritual transformations. 
No man can be fruit-bearing unless he sacrifices himself. 
We shall not "quicken" our fellows unless we "die" either 
literally or by the not less real martyrdom of rigid self- 
crucifixion. Self-renunciation guards the way to the 
"tree of life." The world's war-cries to-day are two — 
*'Get!" "Enjoy!" Christ's command is, "Renounce!" and 
in renouncing we shall realise both of these other aims, 
which they who pursue them only never attain. 

; — Dr. Alexander Maclaren, 



Chapter X: The Fruit of the 
Cross 

"Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except a corn of 
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone : 
but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John 
xii. 24) . That we are here brought face to face with 
a truth of exceptional importance and significance is 
evident from the formula, "Verily, verily," with 
which our Saviour prefaces this statement. The 
truth which lies beneath the surface of this beautiful 
sentence may not be instantly perceived, it may, 
moreover, be repugnant to our conception of life 
and service, but this renders it only the more neces- 
sary that it should be pressed upon our attention. 

Augustine reminds us that this "Verily, verily," 
is not the language of friend to friend ; it rather in- 
dicates that we know so little of Christ's mind, and 
have so little confidence in Him, that His oath and 
bond are required by us before we can believe Him. 
Does not this language also reveal to us a Teacher, 
who bears with our slowness and ignorance, who 
deigns to meet us where we are, and who uses such 
words to arrest our attention as are needed by our 

113 



114 The Way of the Cross 

dull intellect and unresponsive heart? May He not 
speak to my heart and thine, dear reader, in vain. 

There is but one path to the blessedness which 
opens before us here. Abundant fruit fulness, the 
life which is life indeed, fellowship with Christ in 
service, and fellowship with Christ in glory, are all 
attained by our identification in Christ's death. The 
key to the wonderful life which is outlined here 
is: ^'Except it Die.''' Death is the gate of life; 
self -oblation is the law of self-preservation, and 
self-preservation is the law of self-destruction. 

Two conditions of being are possible, either of 
which must constitute our character — love or self. 
Love seeks its life outside itself; self seeks its life 
within itself. Love, in order to possess, sacrifices 
selfishness; while self, in order to possess, keeps 
itself and sacrifices love. 

The law which the great Teacher here illustrates 
from the vegetable kingdom, that self-sacrifice is the 
condition of all life, is a law universal in its applica- 
tion. It obtains throughout the physical universe, 
and ^'nothing truly lives or fulfils its true function, 
save as a part of the great whole, and in so far as it 
ministers to the welfare and advance of the whole. 
All things minister to and help each other — even 
sun, moon, and stars. All things give out life, or 
give up life and power to quicken and cherish life in 
other forms; earth, water, and heat ministering to 



The Fruit of the Cross 115 

the life of the plant, the plant dying that it may 
minister to the life of the bird and beast, bird and 
beast dying that they may minister to the life of 
man." 

"Life everywhere replaces death, 

In earth, and sea, and sky; 
And that the rose may breathe its breath, 

Some living thing must die." 

To the Greeks peculiar difficulties were presented 
to the reception of the Saviour's teaching into their 
intellect and heart. For five centuries the Greeks 
had marched at the head of humanity. The whole 
world gathered round the torch of Greek genius. 
Their rich and flexible language, fashioned into the 
most perfect vehicle of thought, had become almost 
universal. Yet their failure in the regeneration of 
society was so conspicuous, that though the highest 
state of intellectual culture of which human nature 
is capable in its sinful state was attained prior to the 
Incarnation, their wise men were as though they 
had never been. Hence St. Paul asks, "Where is 
the wise ? where is the scribe ? where is the disputer 
of this world ? hath not God made foolish the wisdom 
of this world?" (i Cor. i. 20). So far as the moral 
and spiritual regeneration of mankind were con- 
cerned, these philosophers, thinkers, writers, and 
orators had left no trace of their existence, and men 
were halting between a superstition which believed 



Il6 The Way of the Cross 

everything, and a scepticism which believed nothing. 

How is this failure to be accounted for? Their 
master-words were self-culture and self -enjoyment. 
This was, according to the Greeks, the supreme aim, 
the chief good of human life. The gods of Olympus 
were represented as beings who lived only to enjoy 
themselves, and who, when they came to earth, 
came only for the sake of pleasant adventure, or 
selfish amusement, caring nothing for the sins and 
sorrows of humanity. And the character of the gods 
was reflected in their Grecian votaries. Their 
highest conception of life was enjoyment of the 
senses, the intellect, and the imagination. And this 
was the life they loved and cherished. 

Christ calls upon them to substitute self -oblation 
for self -culture, and self-sacrifice for self -gratifica- 
tion. In other words, He asks them to reverse the 
whole bent of their thought and conduct, and to set 
before themselves a conception of life diametrically 
opposed to that which they for centuries had held. 
As Godet says : ''This saying included the judgment 
of Hellenism; for what was Greek civilisation but 
human life cultivated from the view-point of enjoy- 
ment and withdrawn from the law of sacrifice" 

We cannot state too emphatically, in these days 
when self-sacrifice is so little understood, that it is 
the very salt of the Christian character, and that 
without self-sacrifice the Christian life is salt without 



The Fruit of the Cross 117 

the savour. It is the test by which, above every 
other test, a man may know what reahty is in his 
Christianity. And we halt over the elements and 
alphabet of the life divine, until we have learned to 
hate the self -life, and, renouncing it, have "laid 
hold on the life which is life indeed." 

These are days of marvellous religious activity; 
but think of the disproportion between activity and 
achievement! Are there not multitudes of Chris- 
tian workers who have grown so accustomed to 
failure that they have almost ceased to expect suc- 
cess ? Surely, with so much preaching and teaching, 
with so much Bible circulation and tract distribu- 
tion, we ought not only to be holding our ground, 
but to be making inroads upon the kingdom of dark- 
ness. Yet we are not nearly keeping pace with the 
increasing population of the world, and to-day there 
are more millions sitting in darkness and in the 
shadow of death than ever there were. 

One explanation of the fact that results are so 
often scanty and meagre, or not real and abiding, 
lies here: the initio! step to fruitful service has not 
been taken. Either through ignorance or unwilling- 
ness, the vast majority of those who profess to be 
fellow- workers with God in the regeneration of the 
world have never definitely hated and renounced 
the self -life, and it is because they are so much 
alive to self that they are so little alive to God. 



ii8 The Way of the Cross 

Many, in their eagerness to succeed, are continually 
crying to God for the gift of spiritual power. But 
God cannot fulfil their desire, for He is a jealous 
God, and will not give His glory to another; and 
to trust men and women with spiritual power who 
are full of self-assertion would only be to feed their 
vanity and promote their self-idolisation and love of 
self -display. 

It is narrated of the great sculptor, Michael An- 
gelo, that when working at night he wore over his 
forehead, fastened on his artist's cap, a lighted 
candle, in order that no shadow of himself might 
fall on his work! It was a beautiful custom, and 
spoke more eloquently than, perchance, the sculptor 
knew, for the shadows that fall upon our work, how 
often do they fall from ourselves ! 

Is it so in your case, my reader? Are you, Ba- 
ruch-like, seeking great things for yourself? Are 
you sensitive to the approbation or censure of men ; 
elated when praised, disheartened when blamed? 
Do you consult your natural tastes and feelings in 
your work, missing the footsteps of Him who 
pleased not Himself? Do you shrink from the work 
that is disagreeable, that is unseen of men, and that 
carries with it no outward recompense? Verily, 
verily, I say unto you, you have your reward, but 
it is not the reward of gathering fruit unto life 
eternal. 



The Fruit of the Cross 119 

It is said that properly ripened seeds, if placed 
in certain conditions, are capable of retaining their 
growing-power indefinitely; not merely for a few 
years, not merely for a few centuries, but for thou- 
sands of years — how long, indeed, no man can say. 
The earthy crust of our planet appears to be stocked 
in every part with seeds that have been produced 
in years gone by, scattered upon the surface, and 
subsequently covered up with soil. Whenever the 
ground is disturbed, either by the plough, or by the 
spade of the railway excavator, or for any purpose 
which causes its depths to be overturned, that 
portion which was many feet below being thrown to 
the surface, and exposed to the air, the sunbeams, 
and the moisture of dew and rain, immediately there 
springs up a crop of young plants, certainly not 
originating in seeds only just then brought from 
neighbouring fields, and as certainly from seeds that 
have been lying in the soil for ages. 

But away there in the depths of the earth, though 
the seed retains its vitality, it abides alone. Note, 
it is only as the seed dies that it attracts to itself 
the carbon, the nitrogen, and the various salts that 
contribute to the nurture of the grain, and that lie 
in the earth unused and unproductive until a power 
comes into contact with them that brings them forth 
from their lurking-places. The latent life-germ 
needs the penetrating sunbeam and the warm rain 



120 The Way of the Cross 

of heaven, then decay and death begin, and out of 
decay and death spring Hfe and beauty. What 
dormant powers, what divine possibilities lie sleep- 
ing in human lives to-day! What talents and gifts 
are buried away in those depths ! If men and women 
would only expose themselves to ''the open sunshine 
of God's love," and throw open their hearts to the 
fertilising dew of His Spirit, there would start into 
life latent forces, which, under the vitalising power 
and guidance of the Holy Ghost, would fill hundreds 
of other lives with blessing, and their own with un- 
speakable joy. 

"Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and 
die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth 
much fruit." Let us follow in imagination, that 
corn of wheat as it falls into the ground. Within 
its tiny husk is a farina or flower, and inside that a 
divine secret, a life germ, which the microscope 
cannot detect. It is full of latent life, and contains 
the germ of boundless harvests. But its dormant 
capabilities are only quickened, and that secret germ 
is only released by a rending asunder, a disintegra- 
tion, a death. 

The little seed surrenders itself to the forces of 
nature, which seize upon it and speedily destroy its 
shapeliness and beauty. Down there, beneath the 
red mould, God has His laboratory, and he carries 
on and completes that process of transmutation 



The Fruit of the Cross 121 

which is the most wonderful that takes place beneath 
the sun. As the dissolution takes place, the life- 
germ begins to feed on the farina till it is all con- 
sumed. 

It is like a prisoner shut up in his cell with a 
cruse of water and a crust of bread, and when the 
water is consumed to the last drop, and the crust 
consumed to the last crumb, then it begins to burst 
its prison-walls. The germ then divides into two. 
One, the plumule, tends upward, the other, the 
radicle, tends downwards. The part that shoots 
downwards seeks from the soil such particles as are 
required to build up its future life, and passes them 
on for the growth of the plant in the upper air. It 
lays all nature under contribution for its sustenance ; 
from earth and sky it borrows materials of growth, 
and at length becomes a luxuriant corn laden with 
its fruitful ear. 

"Now mark," says one — in a most suggestive 
article on this subject — "how much larger is the life 
which the corn of wheat can lay hold of in its new 
body. As to receiving, it at once has fellowship 
with all the resources of nature. Air, light, rain, 
dew, earth, all minister to its upbuilding and wel- 
fare. From all these in its former body it could 
take nothing. As to giving, too, what a change! 
For now it bringeth forth fruit, thirty- fold, sixty- 
fold, it may be a hundredfold." The spiritual 



122 The Way of the Cross 

application of this is so apparent, that every reader 
will be able to make it for himself. 

Before the Son of God stooped to clothe Himself 
in human form, — in order that He might become 
"obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross" 
— every element of power (excepting self-sacriUcing 
hove) had been tried and had ignominiously failed. 
But the Cross becomes a throne, and the Crucified a 
conqueror ; He who was lifted up from the earth is 
drawing all men unto Himself, and the measure of 
our drawing power is the measure of our self- 
emptied and Christ-possessed lives, for "except it 
die it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth 
much fruit." 



'Have you ever heard of the aloe plant, 

Far away in the sunny dime ? 

By a humble growth of a number of years 

It reacheth its blooming time; 

And then a wondrous bud at its crown 

Breaks into a thousand flowers: 

But the plant to the Hower is a sacrifice. 

For it blooms but once, and in blooming dies. 

And each and all of its thousand flowers. 

As they drop in the blooming time, 

Are infant plants that fasten their roots 

In the place where they fall on the ground; 

And fast as they fall from the dying stem 

Grow lively and lovely around; 

So dying, it liveth a thousandfold 

In the young that spring from the death of the old. 



The Fruit of the Cross 123 

"You have heard of Him whom the heavens adore. 
Before Whom the hosts of them fall; 
How He left the choir and anthems above, 
For earth, in its wailing and woes; 
To suffer the pain, the shame of the Cross, 
And die for the life of His foes ! 
He died, but His life in numberless souls. 
Lives on in the world anew. 
His seed prevails and is filling the earth. 
As the stars fill the sky above; 
He teaches to yield up the love of life, 
For the sake of the life of love: 
His death is our life — His life the world's glory. 
And we are commanded to spread the glad story." 



Chapter XI : The Gains of the Cross 



Life out of death — 
Dear Master, is it spoken 

Of the life here, or in the better land? 
Nay, wherefore wait? the vessel marred and broken, 

Shall now be moulded by the Potter's hand. 

Life out of death — 
Oh, wondrous resurrection! 

Seed sown in conscious weakness, raised in power; 
Thy life lived out in days of toil and friction, 

"Not I, but Christ" in me — from hour to hour. 

Life out of death — 
A pilgrim path and lonely, 

Trodden by those who glory in the Cross; 
They live in fellowship with "J^sus only," 

And for His sake count earthly gain but loss. 

Life out of death — 
Blest mission to be ever 

Bearing the living water, brimming o'er, 
With Life abundant from the clear, pure river. 
Telling that thirsty souls need thirst no more. 

— Af . C. 



Chapter XI: The Gains of the 
Cross 

"He that loveth his life shall lose it ; and he that 
hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life 
eternal" (John xii. 25). The word "life" here is 
expressed by two Greek terms having quite a differ- 
ent meaning. The one, as the margin of the Re- 
vised Bible suggests, might be translated "soul"; it 
is the Greek psyche, and stands for our lower, our 
soulish, or self-life; the second word refers to the 
higher, the divine life. If we love the lower life, if 
we listen to the philosophy of the world, which is 
"Spare thyself: the cross be far from thee/' we lose, 
of necessity, the higher, the abundant life; for we 
cannot have, at one and the same time, what the 
world calls "life" and what Christ calls "life." 

Mr. Spurgeon tells of a raw countryman, who 
brought his gun to the gunsmith for repairs. The 
latter is reported to have examined it, and finding 
it to be almost too far gone for repairing, said, 
"Your gun is in a very worn-out, ruinous, good- 
for-nothing condition, what sort of repairing do 

you want for it?" "Well," said the countryman, 

127 



128 The Way of the Cross 

"I don't see as I can do with anything short of a 
new stock, lock and barrel; that ought to set it up 
again." "Why/' said the smith, "you had better 
have a new gun altogether." "Ah," was the reply, 
"I never thought of that: and it strikes me that's 
just what I do want, a new stock, lock, and barrel; 
why that's about equal to a new gun altogether, and 
that's what I'll have." That is just the sort of re- 
pairing that man's nature requires. The old nature 
must be cast aside as a complete wreck, and good for 
nothing, and the man made a new creation in Christ 
Jesus. But willing as we may be to admit this truth, 
few lessons are harder to learn. 

Christ's sacrifice utterly condemned me in my 
natural state. It was as if He said: "O Righteous 
Father, I offer up and renounce this man's impure 
soul, that it may die; and that My life may live and 
grow in him." Have I yet learned to hate, re- 
nounce, deny, and deliver over to death, in the unity 
of my Lord's sacrifice, my condemned selfhood? 
Until I have, I shall never know the meaning of 
the words *Tf any man serve Me, let Him follow 
Me," for we only follow Him by sharing in the 
spirit of His self-sacrifice. 

That may mean for us a way of humiliation and 
seeming defeat ; but not in service that arrests wide- 
spread notice, or excites the admiration of the 
multitude, do we always best serve Christ. Ours 



The Gains of the Cross 129 

may be a baptism of sorrow and pain, for strait is 
the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth to this 
life, and few there be that find it. 

The souHsh Hfe longs for ease, for indulgence, for 
display, for wealth, for position, for popularity, and 
it is recorded as one of the marks of the grievous 
times that characterise the last days, that ''men shall 
be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, 
. . . without self-control, . . . puffed up, lovers of 
pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding a form 
of godliness, but having denied the power thereof* 
(2 Tim. iii. 2-5, r.v.). 

It has been remarked that all things thrive in 
proportion as they relate themselves to the world 
around them ; in proportion as they surrender them- 
selves to their environment. While the branches 
surrender their independence and lose themselves in 
the tree, they grow beautiful with leaf, and flower, 
and fruit; but as soon as they detach themselves 
from the general life, they begin to wither and rot, 
and rrien gather them into bundles and burn them. 
While the members surrender their individual life to 
the one life of the body, the rich blood courses 
through them, and they become strong and vigorous, 
but a severed member soon becomes a withered and 
shapeless thing. So the selfish man ethically de- 
stroys himself by selfishness. In proportion as we 



130 The Way of the Cross 

give we shall receive, and the power of perfect 
sacrifice is also the power of perfect life. 

The exclamation of Jesus, in John xii. 2y^ reminds 
us of the pain and anguish which accompanied the 
sacrifice of Himself. "Now is my soul troubled, 
yet what shall I say? Father, save me from this 
hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour. 
Father, glorify Thy Name." Here is a picture 
of the conflict which goes on in many lives between 
the higher and the lower natures, when God's call 
comes, to account ourselves dead, and "to be united 
together with Christ by the likeness of His death" 
(Rom. vi. 5, R.V.). 

How many agencies God employs to bring to an 
end the power of our self-life ! "Think of the seed 
cast into the earth exposed to wintry winds ; trodden 
under the feet of those who drive the rake and 
harrow over it; buried out of sight and left alone, 
as if cast out by God and man to endure the slow 
process of a daily dissolution, then melted by rains 
and heats until its form is marred, and it seems 
useless to either God or man." So in a variety of 
unexpected and unwelcome ways does God bring to 
death that which He has condemned. How strik- 
ingly this is illustrated in the case of Job! Yet all 
the despoiling forces, men and devils, friends and 
foes, were held in leash by the strong hand of Love, 



The Gains of the Cross 131 

who, when His purposes were accomplished, said, 
"Thus far shalt thou go', and no farther." 

To cry out, "Save me from this hour !" to shrink 
and murmur, is only to disappoint God, to aggravate 
the evil, and to frustrate His purposes of grace. It 
is through the valley of the shadow of death, 
through the fiery way of trial, that we are brought 
into the wealthy place. It is God who directs the 
movements of the Sabeans and Chaldeans; it is He 
who permits the whirlwind to devastate and death 
to destroy, and our deliverance is not in fleeing from 
the marauding bands, but in saying, as Jesus did, 
"Father, glorify Thy name !" Whatever this means 
of severance and suffering, "Father, glorify Thy 
name!" and like our Master we shall hear a voice 
which assures us, "I have both glorified it, and will 
glorify it again." 

We shall do well to be on our guard against 
attempting to conquer self by any active resistance 
we can make to it by the powers of nature, for 
"nature can no more overcome or suppress itself, 
than wrath can heal wrath." Our very efforts to 
overcome it, seem to give it new strength; self-love 
finds something to admire, even in the very attempts 
we make to conquer it. It will even take pride in 
what we mean to be acts of self-humiliation. There 
is no deliverance for us from this dread tyrant but 
in God. We are not skilful, or brave, or disinter- 



132 The Way of the Cross 

ested enough to wage this war alone. We must set 
ourselves against this foe which is His as well as 
ours, and while we strive in all things to work to- 
gether with Him, we must trust Him to work for 
us and in us, till self shall die slain by God's own 
breath. As living, intelligent beings, we must yield 
to the inspiration of the power that kills and makes 
alive, for God does not work irresistibly as upon 
dead matter, but intellectually and spiritually as 
upon honest mind. Self being reckoned dead, its 
gross affections may be put to death ; so that instead 
of the works of the flesh will appear the fruit of the 
Spirit (Gal. v. 19-24). "Instead of the thorn shall 
come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier the 
myrtle tree" (Isa. Iv. 13). Instead of the repulsive 
/ life, shall appear the beautiful Christ-life. No 
longer I, but Christ." 

Let us get these three truths firmly fixed in our 
mind. First, the death of self with Christ is the 
one only way to life in God. This is the one con- 
dition of the promised blessing, and he that is not 
willing to die to things sinful, yea, and to things 
lawful, if they come between the spirit and God, 
cannot enter that world of light and joy and peace, 
provided on this side of heaven's gates, where 
thoughts and wishes, words and works, delivered 
from the perverting power of self — revolve round 



The Gains of the Cross 133 

Jesus Christ, as the planets revolve around the 
central sun. 

Secondly, the only cure for self is condemnation 
unto death with Christ. It is unreformable in its 
character, and immutable in its workings. It can 
no more change from evil to good than darkness 
can work itself into light, and therefore death to 
self is the one only way to life in God. 

Thirdly, the only conqueror of self is Christ 
It is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, 
that sets us free from the law of sin and of death 
(Rom. viii. 2). The ruling monarch will never 
dethrone himself, but if we welcome the Christ of 
God into the temple where self has been enshrined, 
the hideous idol will fall before His word as Dagon 
fell before the ark. 

As Andrew Murray says: "Self can never cast 
out self, even in the regenerate man. Praise God! 
the work has been done. The death of Jesus, once 
and for ever, is our death to self. And the gift of 
the Holy Spirit makes our very own the power of 
the death-life." 

A word of warning is perhaps necessary, lest, 
actuated by some selfish aim, our self-sacrifice only 
becomes deeper self-seeking. It is not a bartering 
of a bad self for a better self, but a foregoing and 
utter renunciation of self for ever. 'Whosoever 



134 The Way of the Cross 

will lose his life for My sake,'' said Jesus, "shall 
find it." 

Self-sacrifice for the sake of self-discipline is a 
delusion indeed; it is nothing but self -culture ; the 
very life we profess to be seeking to overcome is 
actually being fed and strengthened by what we 
think to be blows struck at its very existence. Our 
self-sacrifice is utterly valueless unless it bears this 
stamp upon it, ''For My sake/' 

As to the recompense of this self -renouncing life. 
What words can describe it! For a season every- 
thing may seem to be dark and dreary; there may 
be a desertion and a loneliness which are hard to the 
flesh, but as suffering was the pathway which the 
Saviour trod in order to enter into His Glory, so 
through this same experience is every son of man 
glorified, and God is glorified in him. As one has 
beautifully said: 'Those who die with Christ are 
safe with Him. For His own life-guard of angels 
is about them, to watch and roll away the stone, that 
the dead may, in due time, rise again." 

In all true sacrifice there is more of joy than 
sorrow. The whole life of God is just the outflow- 
ing of His love, and the sacrifice of Christ is simply 
the full revelation of that wondrous love. It is no 
pain, surely, to a lover to give himself and all he has 
to his beloved. Nay, "It is more blessed to give 
than to receive," and the richest, truest, and most 



The Gains of the Cross 135 

lasting of all blessedness is the blessedness of self- 
giving. The stairway of self -oblation leads men 
ever upward and onwards, from the life of Christ 
to the likeness of Christ, the fellowship of Christ, 
the throne of Christ, and the glory of Christ : "For 
to him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me 
in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set 
down with My Father on His throne." 

"Measure thy life by loss instead of gain, 
Not by the wine drunk but by the wine poured forth ; 
For love's strength standeth in life's sacrifice; 
And whoso suffers most hath most to give." 



Chapter XII : Beauty for Ashes 



Look not for a true living strength, in the life of the 

Me and the I, 
With nothing to love but its selfhood, and fearing to 

suffer and die, 
As thou seekest the fruit from the seed-planted grain. 
Seek life that is living, from life that is slain. 

Then hasten to give it its death-blow, by nailing the / to 
the Cross; 

And thou shalt find infinite treasure in what seemed noth- 
ing but loss; 

For where, if the seed is not laid in the ground. 

Shall the germ of the new resurrection be found. 

The soul is the Lord's little garden, the / is the seed that 

is there; 
And He watches it while it is dying, and hath joy in the 

fruits it doth bear. 
In the seed that is buried is hidden the power 
Of the life-birth immortal, of fruit, and of flower. 

*Tis hidden, and yet it is true; 'tis mystic, and yet it is 
plain ! 

A lesson, which none ever knew, but souls that are in- 
wardly slain; 

That God, from thy death, by His Spirit shall call 

The life ever-living, the life All in All. 

— Professor T. C. Upham. 



Chapter XII: Beauty for Ashes 

Some years ago, on engineering a malarious dis- 
trict in South America, so many of the men were 
stricken down with sickness, that the engineer re- 
solved to destroy the luxuriant undergrowth of 
weeds, flowers, ferns, mosses, and lichens, by fire. 
The result was six months of continued burning and 
smouldering, until, to all appearance, the life- 
principle was eradicated from soil and sub-soil. 
After two years of desolation and sterility, a little 
plant appeared, developing in due time a flower so 
rich in its loveliness, and so rare in its beauty, as to 
fill the beholder with amazement and admiration. 
It was submitted to floral experts for classification, 
but they knew of no class to which it belonged. 
They had never seen anything like it, and they were 
obliged to let it stand alone in its unique loveliness. 

This aptly illustrates the spiritual desolation 
which precedes our deliverance from the life of 
nature, and from the subtleties of our selfhood, to 
which we must come ere we know the risen life of 
Jesus in all its fulness and fruitfulness. To human 
eyes the life is rich in foliage, here are lovely mosses, 

139 



140 The Way of the Cross 

there are wonderful lichens ; but human eyes cannot 
detect the malaria of selfishness which God sees. It 
is no longer selfishness in its repulsive forms, but in 
its most deceitful and attractive dress. It may be 
described as consecrated selfishness, or selfishness 
for God. 

Now it takes the form of impulsive and intense 
earnestness. Work is undertaken because it seems 
to be of God, but the will of God has not been 
sought, nor has His strength been put on, hence 
creaturely energy takes the place of Divine power. 
Now it takes the form of jealousy for God's glory, 
and a position of antagonism is taken to some 
project, which position says in unmistakable lan- 
guage: "Come and see my zeal for God;" but bitter 
criticisms are indulged, and uncharitable thoughts 
are cherished, which reveal only too clearly the 
malaria of a strong and subtle selfhood. 

Or it takes the form of a craving for spiritual 
enjoyment. The finger is ever on the pulse of the 
emotions, and the soul is constantly inquiring "How 
do I feel?" So long as this emotional pulse beats 
strongly all is well, but if it grows faint and feeble, 
the soul is immediately plunged into the Slough of 
Despondency. This is particularly manifest in work 
for God. The guidance of the Spirit is honestly 
sought, and the spirit is cast upon Him for aid. If, 
however, after the work has been done, there should 



Beauty for Ashes 141 

be an utter di vesture of emotional experience, the 
temptation of going back upon the guidance of the 
Spirit is indulged, and hours of anguish follow, 
because the tempter's lie is believed, that the wrong 
course was taken and the wrong message given. 
This anguish is greatly aggravated if some prized 
human opinion is adverse to what has been said or 
done; and the victim of these experiences not un- 
frequently threatens, because self-love has been thus 
wounded, to abandon work for God altogether. 

The purpose of God is to deliver His children 
from this life, which is still a mixed life, and full of 
vicissitudes and variations, and give in its place a 
life fixed and permanent, where the spirit, delivered 
from selfishness in every form, and in full union 
with the Divine will rests solidly upon the great 
Centre, and upon that alone. Do not let it be for a 
moment thought that we are minimising or depre- 
cating the experience that has been already attained. 
The soul has true life, but not full or perfect life; 
God is not yet that ''all in all" which He longs to 
be, and He cannot and will not let us rest in any 
good which is outside Himself. 

This experience of reluctance to abandon self is 
a very painful one. It is nothing less than the losing 
(so that faith being sustained, it will never be found 
again) of the life of nature, and the being filled with 
the Hfe and fulness which is of God. (Note how, 



142 The Way of the Cross 

in the following passages, Christ insists on this — 
Matt. xvi. 25-27; Mark viii. 35; Luke ix. 24; xiv. 
25-35; John xii. 25.) 

In the Life of Madame Guyon there is a striking 
description of her passage through this experience. 
In the year 1674, she entered into what she terms 
her state of privation or desolation, and continued 
in it, with but slight variations, for more than six 
years. Protracted and painful though her experi- 
ence was, few have been better able than she to say : 
"So then death worketh in us, but life in you'* 
(2 Cor. iv. 12), for while she lived, and all through 
these two hundred years since she slept in Jesus, her 
personal knowledge of spiritual desolation and death 
has brought light and life to multitudes. 

"I seemed to myself," she says, "cast down as it 
were from a throne of enjoyment, like Nebuchad- 
nezzar to live among beasts, — a very trying and 
deplorable state, when regarded independently of 
its relations, and yet exceedingly profitable to me in 
the end, in consequence of the use which Divine 
wisdom made of it." All sensible consolation van- 
ished. God set in motion a train of circumstances 
which seemed to add fuel to the fire, until that to 
which she had clung with such tenacity, and de- 
lighted in with such exceeding delight, was nothing 
but a heap of ashes. But, as her biographer says, 
"God designed to make her His own, in the highest 



Beauty for Ashes 143 

and fullest sense ; he wished her to possess the true 
life, the life unmingled with any element which is 
not true; in other words, a Hfe which flows directly 
and unceasingly from the Divine nature. And in 
order to do this, it became with Him, if we may so 
express it, a matter of necessity that He should take 
from her every inward support, separate and distinct 
from that of unmixed naked faith. She could love 
God's will, trying though it often was to her natural 
sensibilities, when it was sweetened with consola- 
tions; but the question now proposed to her was, 
whether she could love God's will when developing 
itself as the agent and minister of Divine provi- 
dences which were to be received, endured, and 
rejoiced in, in all their bitterness, simply because 
they were from God?" 

Describing this season of aridity and inward de-* 
privation, she says : ''Confused, like a criminal that 
dares not lift up his eyes, I looked upon the virtue 
of others with respect. I could see more or less of 
goodness in those around me, but in the obscurity 
and sorrow of my mind, I could seem to see nothing 
good, nothing favourable in myself. When others 
spoke a word of kindness, and especially if they 
happened to praise me, it gave a severe shock to my 
feelings, and I said in myself they little know my 
miseries; they little know the state from which I 
have fallen. And, on the contrary, when they spoke 



144 The Way of the Cross 

in terms of reproof and condemnation, I agreed to 
it as right and just." 

Then she tells how nature sought to free herself 
from this abject condition, but could not find any- 
way of escape. She was like the slain that lie in the 
grave; to all appearance cut off from God's hand 
and laid in the lowest pit, in dark places in the deeps. 
Shut up, she could not come forth, and she cried in 
her anguish: "Wilt Thou show wonders to the dead? 
Shall they that are deceased arise and praise Thee? 
Shall Thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave? 
or Thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall Thy 
wonders be known in the dark ? and Thy righteous- 
ness in the land of f orgetfulness ? But unto Thee, 
O Lord, have I cried" (Psalm Ixxxviii, r.v.). 

After nearly seven years of inward and outward 
desolation the darkness passed away, and the light 
of eternal glory settled upon her soul. Out of the 
ashes of the abandoned selfhood God brought forth 
a life so novel and beautiful, that the Christians of 
the day in which she lived failed to classify it. It 
was so unlike anything they had ever experienced, 
heard, or read of, that they put her in prison for 
possessing it. 

She learned to look back upon these years as the 
darkness of the grave that precedes the resurrection 
glory; the consuming to ashes that precedes the 



Beauty for Ashes 145 

growth of never-fading flowers ; the night of mourn- 
ing that comes before the morning of joy; the spirit 
of heaviness that is worn before the garment of 
praise. 

"It was on the 22nd of July, 1680, that happy 
day," says Madame Guyon, "that my soul was de- 
livered from all its pains. On this day I was re- 
stored, as it were, to perfect life, and set wholly at 
liberty. I was no longer depressed, no longer borne 
down under the burden of sorrow. I had thought 
God lost, and lost for ever ; but I found Him again. 
And He returned to me with unspeakable mag- 
nificence and purity. In a wonderful manner, diffi- 
cult to explain, all that which had been taken from 
me was not only restored, but restored with increase 
and new advantages. In Thee, O my God, I found 
it all, and more than all ! The peace which I now 
possessed was all holy, heavenly, inexpressible. 
What I had possessed some years before, in the 
period of my spiritual enjoyment, was consolation, 
peace — the gift of God rather than the Giver; but 
now, I was brought into such harmony with the will 
of God, whether that will was consoling or other- 
wise, that I might now be said to possess not merely 
consolation, but the God of consolation; not merely 
peace, but the God of peace. One day of this happi- 
ness j which consisted in simple rest or harmony with 



146 The Way of the Cross 

God's will, whatever that will might he, was suffi- 
cient to counter-balance years of suffering. Cer- 
tainly it was not I, myself, who had fastened my 
soul to the Cross, and under the operations of a 
providence, just but inexorable, had drained, if I 
may so express it, the blood of the life of nature 
to the last drop. I did not understand it then; but 
I understand it now. It was the Lord that did it. 
It was God that destroyed me, that He might give 
me the true life." 

Two observations will perhaps prevent miscon- 
ception at this stage. First, the phrase, "the life of 
nature," is used of the natural life without the re- 
storing and purifying grace of full sanctification. 
The life of nature is the opposite of the life of faith. 
The one is always seeking its own will and acting in 
independence of God, while the other seeks the will 
of God and makes Him the foundation of every 
action. The one looks to man's wisdom and man's 
strength, the other rejects all methods and in- 
strumentalities which are dissociated from God. 
Augustine wisely says : "God is never the destroyer 
of nature, but He ordereth it and maketh it perfect." 

It will be wise, in the second place, to say that 
this deep work of the Spirit need not be protracted 
over years, as in Madame Guyon's case. If utterly 
abandoned to God — determined to shrink from no 
discovery, however humbling, and no purging, how- 



Beauty for Ashes 147 

ever severe — the soul will only ''reach forth" to the 
things that are before, ever "pressing towards the 
mark"; God will very speedily show forth the 
quickening power of His Spirit. 



Chapter XIII: The Pathway of 
Rejection 



O God, unblessing and unblest, 

A withered plant, but not at rest, 

A useless cumberer I'm found 

Upon Thy field, Thy purchased ground; 

And yet I pray — "Do not forsake me 

But in Thy hand, O Jesus, toke me — 

As women take unbroken flax. 

As moulders take unshapen wax, 

As smith, the iron, rough and cold, 

A useful instrument to mould. 

So in Thy skilful hands O take me" 

And never let Thy love forsake me. 

Like rock uncrushed, the stubborn will, 
Though bearing gold is barren still; 
Like marble in the quarry rough, 
The natural heart is useless stuff; 
And so, I pray — "Do not forsake me 
But with Thy hand, O Jesus, break me. 
As mortars crush the hardest rock, 
As hammers break the stony block, 
As millstones bruise the finest wheat, 
As nuts are broken for their meat, 
So with Thy mighty hand, O hreok me. 
And never let Thy love forsake me." 

Though crushed and broken, yet I'm nought. 

But fragments to the furnace brought ; 

Though bruised, I have no worth to feed 

The multitudes that die in need; 

And so I pray — "Do not forsake me 

But meet for service, Jesus make me 

As into useful forms the ore 

From molten scraps the moulders* pour; 

As fire doth make the bruised wheat 

When mixed and moulded, fit to eat ; 

So, fit for use by fire, O make me, 

And never let Thy love forsake me." 

—W. T, Sleeper. 



Chapter XIII: The Pathway of 
Rejection 

One of my intimate ministerial friends had an 
experience which has suggested the title of this 
chapter. His congregation persistently refused to 
accept his message. He wanted to lead his flock into 
the green pastures, and beside the still waters, but 
they were unwilling to be led. His choir, with their 
ungodly practices, brought things to a crisis. 

The position had become so unbearable that he 
invited the choir to resign, for he felt like one of 
old, whenever he attempted to preach, that "Satan 
stood at his right hand to resist him." The choir 
not only resigned but persuaded the congregation 
to desist from taking any part in the singing on the 
following Sabbath. 

The result was that whatever singing was done 
had to be done by the preacher, the choir and con- 
gregation rejoicing in his discomfiture, and refusing 
to join. This state of things continued for some 
time, and, quite naturally, my friend was greatly 
dejected and perplexed at the turn events had taken. 

151 



152 The Way of the Cross 

He was at his wits' end when God spoke to him. 
He was sitting one day on a seat in a park when he 
saw before him on the ground part of a torn news- 
paper. That torn paper had a message for him 
that exactly suited his need. It was this : 

"No man is ever fully accepted until he has, 
first of all, been utterly rejected." 

He needed nothing more. He had been utterly 
rejected, and his recognition of the fact was the 
beginning of a most fruitful ministry in another 
sphere which continues to this day, and proves how 
fully he had been accepted by God though so utterly 
rejected by man. 

It was so with Dr. A. B. Simpson of New York, 
the founder of the Christian and Missionary Al- 
liance. The different crises through which he 
passed are well told in the Life of A. B. Simpson 
by A. E. Thompson, M.A. 

This is how Dr. Simpson himself describes the 
second of these crises : "I look back with unutterable 
gratitude to the lonely and sorrowful night when, 
mistaken in many things and imperfect in all, and 
not knowing but that it would be death in the most 
literal sense before the morning light, my heart's 
first full consecration was made, and with unre- 
served surrender I first could say: 



The Pathway of Rejection 153 

"Jesus, I my cross have taken, 
All to leave and follow Thee, 
Destitute, despised, forsaken, 
Thou, from hence, my all shalt be/* 



Never, perhaps, has my heart known quite such 
a thrill of joy as when the following Sabbath morn- 
ing I gave out those lines and sung them with all 
my heart." 

Dr. Simpson had to learn later, when in response 
to the call of God he resigned his pastorate, what it 
really meant to be * 'destitute, despised, forsaken." 
"He surrendered a lucrative salary of $5,000; a 
position as a leading pastor in the greatest American 
city; and all claim upon his denomination for as- 
sistance in a yet untried work. He was in a great 
city with no following, no organisation, no financial 
resources, with a large family dependent upon him, 
and with his most intimate ministerial friends and 
former associates predicting failure." So completely 
was he misunderstood, even by those from whom 
he expected sympathy, that he once said he often 
looked down upon the paving stones in the streets 
for the sympathy that was denied him elsewhere. 

The rugged path of utter rejection was trodden 
not only uncomplainingly but with rejoicing. He 
knew that though he was brought into the net, and 
was going through fire and water, it was the Di- 
vinely appointed way to the wealthy place. 



154 The Way of the Cross 

He reached the wealthy place at last; and in a 
sense, beyond his wildest dreams, he found himself 
fully accepted by God. There were only seven 
persons at the first service he held when he began his 
great work in the city of New York, but building 
after building soon proved too small for the crowds 
who drank in the message of the Fourfold Gospel 
from his lips. 

Think of his monument! Five schools for the 
training of missionaries; hundreds of missionaries 
and native evangelists in sixteen lands; not a few 
heroic pioneers occupying strategic positions in the 
most distant missionary outposts; a prolific and 
anointed pen, always pouring forth heart-searching 
sermons; the creation of the highest type of re- 
ligious literature, "whereby he being dead yet 
speaketh;" and, best of all, the multitude who 
greeted him, and will yet greet him, on the other 
shore, turned from sin to righteousness through his 
instrumentality. 

What an illustration of the pathway of rejection ! 
Scores of illustrations of this great principle might 
be given, beginning with Christ, the most illustrious. 
"He was despised and rejected of men." 



'It is the way the Master went ; 

Should not the servant tread it still?" 



The Pathway of Rejection 155 

The story of John Tauler, who, in the fourteenth 
century was recognised as the greatest preacher of 
his age, is full of instruction. It was in 1331 that 
Tauler passed through the great crisis of his life. 
Had he not known what it was to be utterly rejected, 
and had he not been willing to drink the cup of 
humiliation and shame to its last bitter dregs, he 
would never have known what it was to be fully 
accepted. The journal of those days is available, 
having been preserved by one of that select band 
known as 'The Friends of God.'* 

Tauler had announced that he would preach on 
the highest degree of perfection attainable in this 
life. The chapel of the famous Strasburg Cathedral 
was crowded long before the time of service, for 
multitudes hung upon the lips of Dr. John Tauler. 
He preached on the necessity of dying utterly to 
the world, and tO' our own will, and of being yielded, 
what he described as "dying- wise," into the hands 
of God. 

While he discoursed eloquently along these lines, 
there was one man in the congregation who knew 
that the preacher had but an imperfect personal 
knowledge of the truths on which he dwelt, and that 
John Tauler was far from dead. This man was 
Nicholas of Basle, an eminent "Friend of God," 
well known in the Bernese Oberland as a saint of 



156 The Way of the Cross 

God possessed of profound spiritual insight and 
knowledge. 

As he listened he said: "The Master is a very- 
loving, gentle, good-hearted man, but despite his 
understanding of the Scriptures, he is ignorant of 
the deep things of God." After hearing Tauler 
preach six times Nicholas sought an interview with 
the preacher. 

"Master Tauler," he said, "you must die!'* 
"Die," said the popular Strasburg preacher, "what 
do you mean?" The next day Nicholas came again 
and said: "John Tauler, you must die to live." 
"What do you mean," said Tauler. "Get alone with 
God," said Nicholas, "leave your crowded church, 
your admiring congregation, your hold on this city. 
Go aside to your cell, be alone and you will see what 
I mean." His plain speaking at first offended 
Tauler, and his resentment only proved how accurate 
was the diagnosis at which Nicholas had arrived. 

Tauler was a long time coming to the end of 
himself, but in Nicholas he had a loving and patient 
teacher. The process of "breaking" was slow and 
painful, but when God is working for Eternity He 
takes no account of time, nor does He spare His 
servants any humiliation or suffering if only they 
may be made vessels broken and empty, "for the 
Master's use made meet." 

Tauler felt himself obliged to obey the advice of 



The Pathway of Rejection 157 

his friend. He left his church, fled from popularity, 
was accounted crazy by his friends, and, alone with 
God, fought the greatest of all battles, the battle 
with that hydra-headed monster Self. 

Assaulted by Satan, despairing of his own heart, 
overcome with weakness of body, broken-hearted 
on account of his sins, his wasted time and lost op- 
portunities, he lay in his room weak and stricken 
down with sorrow. Then John Tauler died, and he 
heard a voice speaking to him and saying: * 'Trust in 
God and be at peace, and know that when He was on 
earth as a man, He made the sick whom He healed 
in body, sound also m souV* I 

Then. John Tauler rose from the dead. \ When he 
came to himself, after not knowing how or where 
he was, he was filled with a new strength and might 
in all his being, and the things which for a time 
were dark to him were now bright and clear. The 
pathway of dying to his reputation, his strength, 
his wisdom, his zeal and eloquence, had been a long 
and painful one. He had been treading the rugged 
road of complete self-abnegation for two whole 
years, while every one who knew him wondered what 
had become of him, and what was the reason of his 
long silence. 

Tauler sent for Nicholas, who said when he 
learned of his friend's experiences : Now thou art a 
partaker of the grace of God. Now thou wilt under- 



158 The Way of the Cross 

stand the Scriptures, and be able to show thy fellow 
Christians the way to Eternal life. Now one of thy 
sermons will bring more fruit than a hundred 
aforetime. 

It was announced that in three days he would 
preach once more. It was so long since his voice 
had been heard in the cathedral that a great crowd 
gathered to hear him. He climbed the high pulpit 
that he might be the better seen and heard by the 
throng of people. Then he prayed: *'0 Merciful, 
Eternal God, if it be Thy will, give me so to speak 
that it may be to the praise and glory of Thy Name, 
and to the good of this people." 

The people listened in breathless expectation, but 
instead of a sermon, Tauler began to weep; his sobs 
became quite audible in the stillness of the Cathedral. 
At last the people grew restless and impatient and 
a man spoke out of the crowd and said : "Sir, how 
long are we to stand here? It is getting late; if you 
do not mean to preach, let us go home !" 

"O my Lord," entreated the broken-hearted 
preacher, "if it be Thy Divine will, take this weep- 
ing from my eyes, and give me to deliver this sermon 
to Thy praise and glory. But if not, I take it as a 
sign that Thou judgest I have not yet been enough 
put to shame. Now fulfil, dear Lord, Thy Divine 
will to me. Thy poor creature." But he only wept 
yet more and more. 



The Pathway of Rejection 159 

Then he said to the amazed congregation : "Dear 
children, I am sorry from my heart that I have kept 
you here so long for I cannot speak a word to-day 
for weeping ; pray God for me, that He may help me, 
and then I will make amends to you, if God give 
me grace, another time, as soon as ever I am able." 

Try and picture that scene ! The silent, weeping 
preacher; the great expectant crowd come together 
to hear, and going away to scoff, for the people 
said : "Now we see that he has become a downright 
fool" — Tauler going away from the empty church 
broken-hearted and humiliated, and creeping back to 
his friends in the monastery feeling that he had 
failed so utterly that he would become a laughing 
stock to the whole city, when the story of his futile 
attempt to preach was known. 

His own brethren forbade him to preach any 
more, because they said he had disgraced the order 
with the senseless practices which he had taken up, 
and which had disordered his brain. 

"Be of good cheer, dear Master," said Nicholas, 
when he arrived from Basle, "your good Friend has 
doubtless perceived some specks of pride in you that 
you have not detected, and therefore it is that you 
have been put to shame. Do not despise this cross, 
but count it as a great blessing and favour from 
God." 

Nicholas further counselled Tauler to be silent 



i6o The Way of the Cross 

before God for five more days, and then ask permis- 
sion to give a lecture to the monks. Permission 
was given, and Tauler gave them such a lecture as 
they had never heard in their lives. They were so 
deeply stirred by it that they gave him permission 
to preach in public once more. 

So it came to pass that three weeks after his 
failure he preached again. His text was "Behold 
the Bridegroom cometh, go you out to meet Him." 
In a kind of parable, strange and beautiful, he told 
the congregation of the struggles and conflicts 
through which he had passed, and of the deep peace 
into which he had entered. 

In the words which he put into the mouth of the 
Bride we recognise the cry of his own soul : "Dear 
Lord and Bridegroom, I here vow and promise to 
Thee that all that Thou wiliest I also will. Come 
sickness, come health, come pleasure or pain, sweet 
or bitter, cold or heat, whatever Thou wiliest that 
do 1 also will. I desire altogether to come out from 
my own will, and to yield a whole and willing 
obedience unto Thee; only let Thy will be accom- 
plished in me. Thy poor unworthy creature in time 
and in Eternity." 

Such was the power of the sermon, that as he 
spoke the people fell down as if dead, and Tauler, 
for fear of further consequences, had to bring his 
sermon to an abrupt conclusion. 



The Pathway of Rejection 161 

He had trodden the pathway of utter rejection 
by men. He was now to tread the blessed road of 
full acceptance by God. His sermons, though hard 
to obtain, are still eagerly read by those who desire 
God's best ; and all who read them understand more 
fully the Master's words : "Except a corn of wheat 
fall into the ground and die it abideth alone: but if 
it die it bringeth forth much fruit." 



Chapter XIV: The Risen Life 



"Dying together" with Jesus, 

This is the end of strife! 
"Buried together" with Jesus, 

This is the gate of life ! 
"Quickened together" with Jesus, 

By the touch of God's mighty breath; 
"Risen together" with Jesus, 

Where is thy sting, O Death? 

"Living together" with Jesus 

Walking this earth with God ; 
Telling Him all we are doing. 

Casting on Him every load. 
Living His life for others. 

Seeking alone His will. 
Resting beneath His shadow. 

With a heart ever glad and still. 

"Seated together" with Jesus, 

In the "heavenly place" of love ; 
Love, unequalled — unending. 

In the heart of the Father above. 
"Seated together" with Jesus, 

To live out the love of God, 
And so win this world unloving. 

By His love so deep and so broad. 

r^Bessie Porter, 



Chapter XIV: The Risen Life 

The Cross of Christ, as St. Paul preached it, 
contains all the elements of moral regeneration and 
of spiritual life. He never gloried in the Cross as 
a narrow technicality, but as illustrating, and, we 
might even say incarnating the length and breadth, 
and depth and height of the love of God. To the 
apostle, the Cross of Christ started from the In- 
carnation on the one side, and led up to the Ascen- 
sion and Enthronement on the other. 

"If we have become united with Him by the 
likeness of His death, we shall he also by the like- 
ness of His resurrection" (Rom. vi. 5). According 
to the completeness of our union with Him in the 
one, will be the completeness of our union with 
Him in the other. Unbelief repudiates what Christ 
has done; for, as Dr. Pfleiderer says: "The objective 
reconciliation effected in Christ's death can after all 
benefit actually, in their own personal consciousness, 
only those who know and acknowledge it, and feel 
themselves in their solidarity with Christ to be so 
much one with Him as to be able to appropriate 
inwardly His death and celestial life, and to live 

165 



i66 The Way of the Cross 

over again His life and death; those only, in a word, 
who truly believe in Christ." Paul's faith fully 
endorsed all that Christ had done as His representa- 
tive. He had joined His Saviour on the Cross, he 
liad gone down with Him into the grave, and because 
He had come forth from the tomb Paul had come 
forth too, for "in this appropriation of the death 
and rising of the Lord Jesus there are three stages, 
corresponding to the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 
of Eastertide. 'Christ died for our sins; He was 
buried; He rose again the third day: so, by conse- 
quence, I am crucified with Christ; no longer do I 
live; Christ liveth in me.' " 

Burial is the seal and certificate of death. Christ's 
interment in the rocknhewn sepulchre gave conclu- 
sive evidence of the reality of His death. His 
enemies said, "That is the end of another deception," 
while His friends said, "We trusted that it had been 
He who should have redeemed Israel." The phrase 
*'buried with Christ" denotes, then, the absoluteness 
of our death with Him, as a man who passes away 
is said to be dead and buried. The relatives and 
friends of a Hindoo convert to Christianity, in order 
to show how completely they have cast him off, 
actually celebrate his funeral, and treat him, after 
this open display of his death, as if he really no 
longer existed. 



The Risen Life 167 

The reckoning of faith which results in identifi- 
cation with Christ in His death may be at first a 
secret and only known to God and ourselves, but 
it cannot remain a secret. The average Roman of 
the period when this letter was written was accus- 
tomed to the amphitheatre. He became, by the law 
of association, brutalised and ferocious to the last 
degree. Coming under the power of Christ, he died 
to the degradation and cruelty of the amphitheatre, 
and because the fashions of the age were such that 
no follower of Christ could consent to them, he be- 
came dead to society, and of necessity the secret was 
soon out that he had joined the ranks of the despised 
Nazarene. He was as much dead and buried to these 
things as if his body had been laid in the grave. 

Just as we have all known what it is to turn away 
at last from the grave-side where the body of some 
loved one has been laid at rest; just as we have 
lingered to take the last look at the coffin, and have 
then come away with tear-dimmed eyes, feeling all 
was over, so they who are really dead and buried 
with Christ think of that old natural self as having 
been wrapped in its winding-sheet, and buried in 
the dark grave with Christ's burial. The old habits, 
the old besetments, the old sins are, by a faith that 
knows nothing of intermittency, completely past and 
gone. So Tersteegen sings:— 



i68 The Way of the Cross 

"Dead and crucified with Thee, passed beyond my doom; 
Sin and law for ever silenced in Thy tomb. 

"Passed beyond the mighty curse, dead, from sin set free ; 
Not for Thee earth's joy and music, not for me." 

"Dead, the sinner past and gone, not the sin alone; 
Living, where Thou art in glory on the throne." 

And now let us dwell on some of the features of 
this risen life. It introduces us into a new world; 
it puts an end to all our former opinions, notions, 
and tempers; it opens new senses in us, and makes 
us see high to be low, and low to be high; wisdom 
to be foolishness, and foolishness wisdom; it makes 
prosperity and adversity, praise and dispraise, to be 
equally nothing. 

I. This risen life is marked by perpetuity. There 
are animals which hibernate, and for all practical 
purposes are dead for a season: for a season they 
abandon their haunts and habits, but when the 
warmth of spring penetrates their burying-place, 
there is a revival of their old instincts. So there 
are those whose death is so unreal, that the abandon- 
ment of sin is only temporary, and while they think 
themselves dead, the soul of sin lives on underneath 
the lethargic surface, and when the cause of its 
insensibility has passed away, returns with strength- 
ened life to all its old habits and ways. Such was 
not the death and risen life of Jesus. This may 
mean, and to unwavering faith will mean the en- 



The Risen Life 169 

trance into an experience where there need be no 
relapses into sin. "The death that He died, He 
died unto sin on€e for all; but the life that He liveth, 
He liveth unto God. Even so, reckon ye also your- 
selves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in 
Jesus Christ" (Rom. vi. 10, 11). Let us emphasise 
that once for all. There should be no relapses into 
the realm of death. Sin is the tomb of the soul, and 
if we have risen, let us be sure we do not return to 
it. There must be no periodic visits to the sepul- 
chre ; we must die unto sin once for all and as Jesus 
never returned to the sepulchre after He left it, so 
let us resolve in the power of the Holy Spirit never 
to return; so that it may be said of us with regard 
to the old associations, habits, and indulgences, as it 
was said of our Lord, "He is not here. He is risen.'' 

2. Again, this risen life is marked by activity. 
We are to be, as the risen Jesus was, ''alive for 
God." The words point to a life of which God is 
the only aim. A life which in every thought, word 
and act is for God. To be alive for anyone is to be 
keenly devoted to the advancement of that one's in- 
terests. The tradesman does not simply want as 
assistants those who will keep their hands out of his 
till, but those who are so alive for him as to make 
his interests their own. 

The deviation of a ship's compass from the true 
magnetic meridian is caused by the near presence of 



lyo The Way of the Cross 

iron. This disturbing influence must be neutralised 
or the compass becomes worthless. The deviation 
of the soul from its God-ward course is caused by 
the presence of sin, and so long as we remain un- 
believing concerning our crucifixion with Christ, we 
shall be alive to its power and there f pre not truly 
alive for God. There are disturbing forces at work 
in the unsanctified soul which prevent the hearing of 
God's voice and the doing of God's will. 

When Paul was charged by the Corinthians with 
caprice and fickleness (2 Cor. i.), he denied the 
charge on the ground that he was a spiritual Chris- 
tian. "The things that I purpose, do I purpose 
according to the flesh that with me there should be 
the yea, yea, and the nay, nay." Paul's inner being 
was once like an undisciplined mob, the voices of 
self-interest, ambition, and policy being all heard in 
turn, but it was not so now. He claims to be 
"established in Christ, and to be anointed," which 
means freedom from all selfish and personal wishes, 
deliverance from those passions whose name is 
legion, and power to sit at the feet of Jesus clothed 
and in his right mind! A man who is free from 
the manifold motives of self-will moves like the sun 
— steady, majestic, with no variableness, neither 
shadow of turning. His course can be calculated. 
Paul claimed that because he was in Christ he could 
not be tricky, or manoeuvre, or do underhand things. 



The Risen Life 171 

Fulness of life will certainly result in activity and 
intensity. The man who is really united to Jesus 
has his own life destroyed out of him and the life of 
Christ communicated to him. The life which Christ 
reproduces in us cannot be idle, uns)niipathetic, cold, 
parsimonious, or seclusive from men's joys and 
sorrows. That life will unfold itself, where there is 
nothing to hinder it, as naturally as the vine pro- 
duces grapes. "I confess," says Madame Guyon, 
'T do not understand the resurrection state of cer- 
tain Christians who profess to have attained it, and 
who yet remain all their lives powerless and desti- 
tute: for here the soul takes up a true life. The 
actions of a raised man are the actions of life; and 
if the soul remains lifeless, I say that it may be dead 
or buried but not risen. A risen soul should be able 
to perform without difficulty all the actions which it 
has performed in the past, only they would be done 
in God. Those who believe themselves to be risen 
with Christ, and who are nevertheless stunted in 
their spiritual growth and incapable of devotion — I 
say, they do not possess a resurrection life, for 
there everything is restored to the soul a hundred- 
fold." 

There ought to be no room for the objection that 
this life of perfect union with a risen Saviour leads 
to an introspective and largely meditative life. It is 
difficult to detect anything that is introspective in 



172 The Way of the Cross 

the lives of George Fox and John Wesley, for ex- 
ample, after they had entered into the resurrection- 
life. Their lives were filled with holy, self- forgetful 
activities. Like their Master they were anointed 
with the Holy Ghost and with power, and they went 
about doing good, and healing all that were op- 
pressed with the devil, for God was with them (Acts 
X. 38). This risen life is not the imitation of a 
splendid model but the indwelling of a living Person. 
The Christ-life is only the outward development of 
the Christ nature; the life manifesting itself after 
its kind. Personal and abiding union with Him 
makes it as easy for the believer to do Christ-like 
works as for the branch to bear the luscious fruit 
when it is in unhindered fellowship with the vine. 
"He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same 
beareth much fruit: for apart from Me ye can do 
nothing" (John xv. 5). ''Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do 
shall he do also; and greater works than these shall 
he do; because I go unto the Father" (John xiv. 

12). 

3. This risen life is characterised by newness. In 
everything which is really of God there is a singular 
freshness and novelty. We are raised with Jesus 
that we may walk henceforth in "newness of life," 
and "if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation : 
old things have passed away ; behold, all things have 



The Risen Life 173 

become new'' (2 Cor. v. 17). God is not the God of 
the dead, but of the living, and this newness of life 
is the crowning joy of union with the risen Jesus. 
We blunder when we make the mystic grave the 
goal; for we are the children of the resurrection, 
and the goal is life so unspeakably energising, fresh, 
free, and joyous, as that words fail to describe its 
blessedness. This new life is so heavenly in its 
character, that it makes its possessor responsive to 
everything with which it has affinity, both in heaven 
and earth. Who can enjoy the sounds and sights 
of this fair world — which are but ''the drapery of 
the robe in which the Invisible has clothed Himself" 
— like the man who is living in the perpetual enjoy- 
ment of God's fresh life? Having been brought 
into perfect harmony with God, he appreciates 
everything in its true and Divine relation — all in 
God, and God in all. He sings as only a child of the 
resurrection can sing : — 

"Heaven above is softer blue, 
Earth around is sweeter green, 
Something lives in every hue, 
Christless eyes have never seen; 
Birds with gladder songs o'erflow, 
Flowers with deeper beauties shine. 
Since I know as now I know, 
I am His, and He is mine." 

4. The risen life is once more a hidden life. "Ye 
are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God'* 



174 The Way of the Cross 

(Col. iii. 3). "He that is joined unto the Lord is 
one spirit" (i Cor. vi. 17). "I am not ashamed to 
say," says Dr. J. Rendel Harris, "that I believe there 
is an experience of union with the Lord which is 
rightly characterised as pantheistic, in which God 
has met all the needs of the soul, and has become 
the indwelling power of the human spirit; that the 
man who is thus united to God moves as God moves, 
and acts as the Lord wills him to act in the body 
and in the circumstances in which he is placed. 
Christ can be all in all in the twentieth century as 
well as in the first, and we do not need to think Him 
less than He wishes to be to those who trust in 
Him." 

It was from this fact that the early disciples de- 
rived much of their strength and courage. Thus 
Paul wrote: "Knowing that He Which raised up 
the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also with Jesus, 
and shall present us with you : for which cause we 
faint not : for though our outward man is decaying, 
yet our inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 
iv. 14, 16). The calm of God's presence had settled 
down upon the man who wrote these words, and 
in nothing was he terrified by his adversaries ; living 
his life "within the veil," he knew that in the very 
perfection of opposition (see Rom. viii. 35-37) he 
would te more than conqueror through Him who 
loved him. The adversaries might rage, the storms 



The Risen Life 175 

might beat, the kings of the earth might set them- 
selves against the Lord's anointed ones, but though 
the circumference was a whirl the centre was at 
rest, and the secret was a life hidden with Christ, 
where no sharp arrow from the enemy's bow could 
penetrate, and where there was consequent ''quiet- 
ness and confidence for ever" (Isa. xxxii. 17). 

In one of the Perthshire valleys there is a tree 
which sprang up on the rocky side of a little brook, 
where there was no kindly soil in which it could 
spread its roots, or by which it could be nourished. 
For a long time it was stunted and unhealthy, but 
at length, by what may be called a wonderful 
vegetable instinct, it sent a fibre out across a narrow 
sheep-bridge which was close beside it. Then fixing 
itself in the rich loam on the opposite bank of the 
streamlet, it began to draw sap and sustenance, and 
speedily became vigorous. What that tiny bridge 
was to the tree, the resurrection of Jesus is to the 
believer. If the roots of our life are in our Risen 
Lord, we shall not be stunted and unhealthy, as they 
must ever be who seek to find nourishment for their 
spiritual life in the unkindly soil of the world. 
"Thus saith the Lord, Cursed is the man that trust- 
eth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose 
heart departeth from the Lord : for he shall be like 
the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good 
Cometh; but shall inhabit parched places in the 



176 The Way of the Cross 

wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed 
is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose trust 
the Lord is : for he shall be as a tree planted by the 
waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, 
and shall not fear when heat cometh, but her leaf 
shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year 
of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit" 
(Jer. xvii. 5-8). 

Tauler beautifully says: **As a loadstone draws 
the iron after itself, so doth Christ draw all hearts 
after Himself which have once been touched by 
Him; and as, when the iron is impregnated with 
the energy of the loadstone that has touched it, it 
follows the stone uphill although that is contrary 
to its nature, and cannot rest in its own proper 
place, but strives to rise above itself on high; so 
all the souls which have been touched by this 
loadstone, Christ, can neither be chained down by 
joy nor grief, but are ever rising up to God, out 
of themselves. They forget their own nature, and 
follow after the touch of God, and follow it the 
more easily and directly the more they are touched 
by God's finger." 

5. Again, true resurrection life is an unchanging 
life. The Aaronic priesthood was marked, as the 
writer to the Hebrews tells us, by intermittency 
and change. "They indeed have been made priests 
many in number, because that by death they are 



The Risen Life 177 

hindered from continuing: but He, because He 
abideth for ever, hath His Priesthood unchange- 
able. Wherefore also He is able to save completely 
them that draw near unto God through Him, seeing 
He ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Heb. 
vii. 2^-2^). The whole system was marked by 
change, weakness, and death. It could not affect 
anything that was abiding and permanent, much less 
that was eternal. And the inner life of the worship- 
per corresponded to the system; it was marked by 
fluctuation and decay. There was excuse for an 
intermittent spiritual life then, there is none now, 
because our Priest "ever liveth." The life He lives 
is one of irresistible strength and energy, and is 
indissoluble and indestructible in its character. It 
is a life that withstands victoriously the wear of 
time, the convulsions wrought by the progress of 
knowledge, and the severest assaults of hostile criti- 
cism. Just as the life in the power of which He 
ministers is unchangeable, so the life He ministers to 
all who are in perfect union with Him is a life that 
is unchangeable too. And because there is never 
a moment when His priestly action. His watchful 
care. His loving sympathy and succour, His working 
in us the power of an endless life are not in full 
operation, we may abide for ever in the life-currents 
which flow from the throne of our Risen Lord 
through the power of the Holy Ghost, who is sent 



178 The Way of the Cross 

forth from the Father to be the bearer of this un- 
changing and abundant life to every soul that wills 
to receive it. 

There comes to us, if we will but appropriate it, 
moment by moment, through the indwelling of 
Christ's other Self, heavenly life, heavenly peace A 
heavenly joy, heavenly victory: 

"All the life of heaven above, 
All the life of glorious love;" 

for "the kingdom of God is righteousness and peace 
and joy in the Holy Ghost." The intermittency, 
which may have marked and marred our lives in the 
past, need therefore be our experience no more, and 
will be no more ours while "we walk in the light as 
He is in the light," and practically recognise the 
truth, "All my fresh springs are in Thee." 

It follows from all that has been said that this 
risen life is characterised, lastly, by complete and V 
constant victory. "Christ being raised from the 
dead, dieth no more; death no more hath dominion 
over Him" (Rom. vi. 9). The death of Christ 
meant the conquest of the world, the flesh, and the 
devil. "He was crucified through weakness, yet 
He liveth through the power of God. For we also 
are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him through 
the power of God toward you" (2 Cor. xiii. 4), 
Christ's human body came at last to an end of all 
its capacities and resources, and He died of mortal 



The Risen Life 179 

weakness. We see Him bearing the burden of the 
world's sin, despised and rejected, a Man of sorrows 
and acquainted with grief, wounded for our trans- 
gressions, bruised for our iniquities ; surrounded by 
taunting foes, scourged, buffeted, spat upon, bound 
upon the Cross of shame, then dying of a broken 
heart. "He was crucified through weakness, but 
He liveth through the power of God" 

When Paul wants a concrete illustration of this 
power, he turns to the tomb of Jesus, and tells us 
that the flood-tide of resurrection power which in- 
vaded that lifeless form, that irresistible vital force 
which swept through that cold clay and renovated it 
until it was instinct with resurrection-life and beauty 
in every part, is the power which is to us- ward who 
believe (Eph. i. ig, 20). And when, like that worn 
and exhausted body, our native powers are brought 
by the withering breath of the Holy Spirit to utter 
collapse, we are in the place where we may begin to 
live by the power of God; where He Who lifted 
Jesus out of the grave, out of the earth, into heaven, 
and then to the throne of God in heaven, will raise 
us up also with Him. The power that effected the 
one miracle is quite equal to the accomplishment of 
the other (Col. ii. 12). 

The victory of the head carries with it the victory 
of the body. By virtue of our union with Christ 
we are placed under the influence of an ascending 



i8o The Way of the Cross 

power by which we are drawn higher and higher. 
Just as when a man, lying upon the ground, gets 
up and stands upright, his upright posture draws up 
with it all his limbs, so in the mystical body of Jesus 
Christ, the risen Head, necessarily draws up all the 
mystical members. The subordination also of every 
force, whether hostile or friendly, carries also with it 
present victory and exaltation for every member of 
the true Church, '* which is His body, the fulness of 
Him that filleth all in all" (Eph. i. 19-23). 



Chapter XV: Married to Another 



Child of the Eternal Father, 

Bride of the Eternal Son, 
Dwelling-place of God the Spirit 

Thus with Christ made ever one ; 
Dowered with joy beyond the angels 

Nearest to His throne. 
They, the ministers attending 

His Beloved One; 
Granted all my heart's desire. 

All things made my own; 
Feared by all the powers of evil, 

Fearing God alone; 
Walking with the Lord in glory 

Through the courts Divine, 
Queen within the royal palace, 

Christ for ever mine; 
Say, poor worlding, can it be. 
That my heart should envy thee ? 

— Gerhard Tersteegerir. 



Chapter XV: Married to An- 
other 

"Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made dead 
to the law through the body of Christ; that ye should 
be married to another, even to Him who was raised 
from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto 
God" (Rom. vii. 4). Such is the language in which 
the apostle sets forth the blessedness of the risen 
life. In this seventh chapter he shows us what it is 
to be married to the law, set forth in the figurative 
capacity of a husband. The husband is holy and 
spiritual, righteous and good (verses 12-14), and 
demands perfect love to God and perfect love to 
man. This love is wanting owing to the wife's 
inability, her love being centred in self, and not in 
God. The husband is displeased, and threatens 
death if she does not obey. While the wife fully 
recognises the reasonableness both of the requisition 
and the threatening, she finds herself unable — though 
she promises obedience again and again — to fulfil 
the requirements of her husband, the law. 

If she only had the strength, and could render 
him the loving obedience he demands, her life might 

183 



184 The Way of the Cross 

be one of unsullied happiness, for, as it has been 
said : "the law may be a very good husband for an 
unfallen angel, but it is a very unsatisfactory one 
for a fallen being, who is 'without strength,' and in 
whom there 'dwelleth no good thing/ Law pre- 
supposes strength, and indicates and rewards its 
right use : but 'power into strengthless souls' it can- 
not speak." 

When this first husband is once offended he will 
never again be reconciled. Should the wife ex- 
postulate, "But I wish to do your will;" he replies, 
"Speak not of wishes, but do it." But, says the 
wife, "I have done it in almost every particular;" 
he only answers. "Whoso shall keep the whole law, 
and yet offend in one point, is guilty of all." "May 
I not be forgiven?" asks the distressed wife; he 
answers, "There is no forgiveness in my nature;" 
"the soul that sinneth shall die;" "cursed is everyone 
that continueth not in all things that are written in 
My book to do them." 

After vainly endeavouring to render the requisite 
obedience, and constantly crying out: "To will is 
present with me, but to do that which is good is 
not," the wife at last gives up in despair, and the 
penalty of her disobedience is about to be exacted 
when Christ appears. He reveres, honours, and 
loves the husband, and entirely approves of his re- 
quirements and the course he has taken. But while 



Married to Another 185 

He condemns the wife, He pities her, and with deep 
benevolence loves her. He can do nothing to lower 
the sanctions of her husband's requirements; he 
must not only not be dishonoured, but he must 
be magnified and made honourable. Christ pities 
the wife so much as to be willing to die for her; so, 
by the body of Christ, we become dead to the law. 
The holy and dishonoured law had only one thing 
to give the unfaithful wife — its curse; and ''Christ 
has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being 
made a curse for us." The curse of sin is abandon- 
ment by God, and on the Cross that curse, with all 
its unspeakable accompaniments, fell on the spotless 
soul of Jesus. Abhorred by men, forsaken of God, 
earth all hate, heaven all blackness, the curse that we 
had merited claimed Him as its victim, and by tak- 
ing our place He has brought us for ever out of its 
power. 

We have read of certain venomous animals which 
expire the moment they have deposited their sting 
and its mortal poison in the body of their victim. 
Thus there ensues a double death — that of the suf- 
ferer as well as the assailant. Under the law's awful 
curse, Jesus poured out His soul unto death; but 
at the same moment the law expended all its power 
as a judge and avenger over those who identify 
themselves with Christ. The handwriting of ordi 
nances that was against us and contrary to us has 



l86 The Way of the Cross 

become powerless since it was nailed to His Cross. 
It became from that moment the recdpt of a dis- 
charged obligation. All the right and strength of 
condemnation which belonged to it were put forth 
on that Cross. Payment to the uttermost farthing 
was demanded, and payment to the uttermost farth- 
ing was made. The law has no more power over a 
dead subject than the husband has over a dead wife. 
The death of either contracting party frees both 
from their obligations, and the moment we reckon 
ourselves to have died in Christ, that moment we 
pass from under the curse, and can sing : ^'There is 
now therefore no condemnation to me, for I am in 
Christ Jesus." 

Freed from her union with the law in the death of 
her Deliverer, the wife is now free to marry again. 
Her Deliverer has risen from the dead, and on pro- 
posing marriage to her for whom He died, her 
heart is won, her selfishness is conquered, and with 
her whole soul she enters into a love relationship. 
She needs no stern and terrible legal sanctions to 
keep her from revolting from her husband's will; 
such is the union between her spirit and His, that 
love is law, and law is only love. Her second Hus- 
band's requirements are fuller than the first, for He 
came into the world to fulfil the law, and He died 
and rose again, that married to Him we might fulfil 
it too; ''that the requirements (see R.V.) of the 



Married to Another 187 

law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the 
flesh, but the Spirit" (Rom. viii. 4). The wife was 
too weak to obey her first husband, and he was too 
weak to render her any assistance; but now the 
Conqueror of sin, death, and hell is the Bridegroom 
of her soul. The law has become incarnate in Him 
Who has won her heart, and, ''His commandments 
are not grievous" Hence the bitter wail of inability 
and defeat of the seventh chapter — ''To will is 
present, to do is not! O wretched one that I am, 
who shall deliver me?" — gives place to the triumph- 
ant paean of the eighth chapter: ''The law of the 
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from 
the law of sin and death!" "I am more than con- 
queror through Him that loveth me !" "If He is for 
me, who can be against me?" 

The seventh chapter of Romans is largely the 
complaint of one married to the law, seeking by 
struggle and effort to obey his behests. The eighth 
chapter is the language of the soul's triumph when 
"married to another, even to Him who was raised 
from the dead." In union with Him there is no 
more condemnation, v. i ; no more enslavement, v. 2 ; 
no more unrest, v. 6; no more death, v. 10; no more 
sickness, v. 1 1 ; no more inability, v. 1 1 ; no more 
perplex'ity, v. 14; no more bondage, v. 15; no more 
doubt, V. 16; no more poverty, v. 17; no more 



i88 The Way of the Cross 

anxiety, v. 28; no more defeat, v. 37; no more sep- 
aration, V. 38. 

Let us further see what this marriage union with 
Jesus involves. An earthly relationship, with which 
we are familiar, and with the conditions of which we 
are well acquainted, is used to shadow this wonderful 
heavenly relationship. When writing of it in his 
letter to the Ephesians, Paul said: ''This is a great 
mystery" (Eph. v. 32). This, however, is clear, 
God has purposes of love towards us which may well 
overwhelm us as we contemplate them. No such 
dignity is proposed for any other created being, and 
we are driven to the conclusions that human char- 
acter, formed in full union with Jesus Christ, and by 
the unhindered operation of the Holy Spirit, may be, 
even here and now, a grander thing than can be 
found elsewhere in the universe. Our present posi- 
tion, as the betrothed of Jesus, is unique; our des- 
tiny as His bride is unique ; and it is no matter for 
wonderment if the conditions of trial and training 
to which we are here subjected, to fit us for a 
position of such elevation and distinction, are also 
unique. 

I. By this marriage of the soul to Jesus we be- 
come partakers of the Divine nature (2 Peter i. 4). 
"We are members of His body; being of His flesh, 
and of His bones" (Eph. v. 30). As the woman 
owed her natural being to the man, her source and 



Married to Another 189 

head, so we owe our entire spiritual being to Christ, 
our source and head: and as the woman was one 
flesh with the man in this natural relation, so we, in 
our entire spiritual relation, spirit, soul, and body, 
are one with Christ. "For this cause shall a man 
leave father and mother, and shall be joined unto his 
wife and the two shall be one flesh. Christ is here 
the man in the apostle's view, the Church is the 
woman. The saying applies to that past, present, 
and future which constitutes Christ's union with His 
bride, the Church. His leaving the Father's bosom, 
which is past; His gradual preparation for the union, 
which is present; His full consummation of it, which 
is future. We are as truly now one flesh with Him, 
as we shall be when heaven and earth shall ring with 
the joy of the nuptials." 

Shall we be surprised if, with such a purpose, our 
heavenly Bridegroom should be jealous of the least 
complication of our lives, of the least diversion of 
our aifections in any other direction! "Partakers 
of the Divine nature, having escaped the corruption 
that is in the world in lust." This corruption we 
must escape in union with Jesus in His death; for 
it is not in the elements which surround us, but in 
our own hearts; because there reign those vicious 
and wicked affections, whose source and root is 
denoted by the word "lust." The world in which the 
corruption is, is in ourselves. It is in proportion as 



igo The Way of the Cross 

we escape this, and enter into the wondrous purpose 
of God, that we shall see how reasonable it is that 
He should have us all to Himself; and how He 
could not, with such a love, rest satisfied in any- 
thing short of this. This perfect union of nature 
with our Lord is, as Tauler says, "the dearest and 
most desired thing that God will have from man: 
then man will be always so disposed that God can 
work in him at all times without hindering, and 
therefore He also saith, 'My delight is with the 
children of men.' " 

Someone has called attention to the three stages 
of love. At first the ruling thought of the soul is 
"My Beloved is mine, and I am His" (Canticles ii. 
i6). At this stage we think chiefly of Christ as 
ours, and so in some way for our pleasure. Then we 
come to 'T am my Beloved's and my Beloved is 
mine" (vi. 3). His ownership and possession take 
the first place in our thoughts. At last we come to 
*T am my Beloved's, and His desire is towards me" 
(vii. 10), where the word "mine" is altogether 
dropped, in the perfect assurance of love that to be 
His indeed, involves all. 

2. The marriage of the soul to Jesus carries with 
it the power to render obedience. The wife of the 
second husband is just as much under obligation 
as she was in her former marriage. Nay, the 
obligation is far greater. Take one illustration 



Married to Another 19 1 

only: the first husband said, "Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart;" but the second 
says, "This is my commandment, that ye love one 
another, as I have loved you/' thus supplying her 
with a new model for her love. What was previously 
an impossible task, becomes now a delightful privi- 
lege, for the very purpose of this union is contained 
in the Saviour's prayer: ^'That the love wherewith 
Thou hast loved me, may he in them, and I in them" 
"He is in His people that He may draw down to 
them the love of the Father, which flowed toward 
Him when He was separately present in this world ; 
and He is in them, that He may perennially exhibit 
to His people the love He bears them. The vocation 
of every believer is this : to be a revelator of the love 
of Christ. The believer is an epistle of Christ — an 
epistle of His love." So that what was impossible 
by a constraining principle from without, is de- 
lightfully possible by an impelling power from 
within. The second Husband therefore supplies a 
new motive as well as a new model, and to every call, 
His beloved may make answer : "The love of Christ 
constraineth me." She serves now not in the oldness 
of the letter which is Sinai, but in the newness of the 
spirit, which is Pentecost. 

3. Marriage to Jesus means also perpetual fruit^ 
fulness. We are "married to Him who was raised 
from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto 



192 The Way of the Cross 

God/' In a familiar chapter in St. John's Gospel, 
the fruit of union with Christ is similarly set forth, 
only the figure there is a vegetaible, as here a 
conjugal one. 

"Fruit unto death," as verse 5 tells us, is the 
outcome of living in the flesh; just as "fruit unto 
God" is the outcome of union with Jesus. "Fruit"' 
is the spontaneous natural manifestation of the life 
within. The great question is. Are we in right 
relations to Jesus ? Is our union with Him so com- 
plete, that every pore and artery of our being is open 
to receive the perpetual inflow of His life? If so, 
we need have no anxiety about fruit. If we take 
care of what we are, what we do will take care of 
itself. 

Flowers that are bent on perfecting themselves by 
becoming double, end in barrenness. This myster- 
ious union of our nature with Jesus, means marvel- 
lous development; but it means also reproduction^, 
for the latter, and not the former, is the goal of 
matured beings. Just as a vine that expends its 
whole energy on producing wood and leaves misses 
its purpose, so the soul that surrenders to God, that 
receives and develops, but stops short at giving 
itself away to man in a life of sacrifice, frustrates 
the very purpose of the union which God has made 
possible to such sour-grape bearers as we must ever 
be, apart from vital union with Him who is the 



Married to Another 193 

Sweet Vine. True union will, by a great spiritual 
law, be followed by abundant fruitfulness. 

4. Marriage to Jesus will he followed by likeness. 
Just as in true wedded life, the husband and wife 
become assimilated to each other in affinities, choices, 
mental peculiarities, and even in physiognomy, so, 
by being '*a partaker of Christ," we become of neces- 
sity Christ-like. "When God set forth His only 
begotten Son as the only possible way of access to 
Himself, it meant that He can have delight in, or 
have fellowship with, nothing in which the likeness 
of His Son is not to be seen. We can have no fur- 
ther entrance into God's favour or good pleasure than 
He can see Christ in us." "But we all, with unveiled 
face mirroring the glory of the Lord, are changed 
into the same image from glory to glory, even as 
by the Lord and the Spirit" (2 Cor. iii. 18). The 
Apostle's thought seems to be- not the reflection and 
radiation of the light and beauty of Christ, but 
the receiving and taking into ourselves that which 
is presented to our vision. Just as the mirror seems 
to hold the face that looks into it, so we, opening 
our nature to Jesus, begin to mirror Him therein, 
for with His likeness He comes in the person of 
His transfiguring Spirit to dwell and work in us, 
until the same likeness as that which He bears is 
wrought out and perfected in us; the glory and 
loveliness in Him become glory and loveliness in us, 



194 The Way of the Cross 

and from the centre to the very circumference of 
our being we are transfigured. 

5. In this marriage the wealth of the Husband is 
of course placed at the disposal of the wife. Many- 
will remember the story of the Lord of Burleigh 
which Tennyson has immortalised. Under the guise 
of a landscape painter he won the heart of a simple 
village maiden. Imagining they were going to the 
cottage of which he had spoken, in which they were 
to spend their happy wedded life, they pass one 
beautiful dwelling after another, until 

*' . . . a gateway she discerns 
With armorial bearings stately, 

And beneath the gate she turns. 
Sees a mansion more majestic 

Than all those she saw before: 
Many a gallant gay domestic 

Bows before him at the door. 
And they speak in gentle murmur. 

When they answer to his call, 
While he treads with footstep firmer, 

Leading on from hall to hall. 
And while now she wonders blindly. 

Nor the meaning can divine, 
Proudly turns he round and kindly, 

*All of this is mine and thine.' " 

So by this union of hearts and lives, the simple 
village girl had become the Lady of Burleigh, and 
all her husband's wealth was hers. 

Who shall tell of the wealth which they inherit 
who are truly united to Jesus ! St. Paul speaks in 



Married to Another 195 

his Ephesian letter of the exceeding riches of His 
grace (Eph. ii. 7). Then he speaks of the unsearch- 
able riches of Christ (iii. 8). The word translated 
"exceeding" literally means "to shoot beyond the 
mark;" St. Paul means, that though we use the 
utmost wealth of language, we cannot shoot beyond 
the mark : the riches of which he is thinking exceed 
all power of language to express. In the other pas- 
sage, the word ''unsearchable" literally means riches 
that can never be explored. We can not only not 
calculate them, but we can never get to the end of 
our investigation. When we have carried our search 
to the limits of possibility, there is still a vast conti- 
nent of riches lying unexplored before us. And as 
our heavenly Bridegroom leads us on. He will ever 
be bringing home to us some new discovery of our 
wealth in him, and at each new revealing He will say : 
''All of this is Mine and thine/' 

6. It follows that the protection of the Husband is 
the marriage portion of the wife. Bride of Jesus, 
let no danger ever affright thee ! "No weapon that 
is f orijied against thee can prosper ; and every tongue 
that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt 
condemn" (Isa. liv. 17). Jesus, thy Husband, is 
invested with absolute authority over this world. 
All the forces of nature are in His hands. All the 
powers of what we call natural laws are under his 
control. All the forces of evil are under His feet. 



196 The Way of the Cross 

He holds the sceptre in His hands, and He controls, 
governs, and manages, with absolute power, every- 
thing that pertains to the history of our race, and to 
the interests of those whom He has redeemed with 
His precious blood. He speaks of three gifts in His 
High-priestly prayer: *'As Thou hast given Him 
power over all flesh, that He should give eternal 
life to as many as Thou hast given Him" (John 
xvii. 2). By the first He is invested with the gov- 
ernment of the world ; by the second, we who trust in 
Him for salvation are given to Him; by the third. 
He communicates to all such eternal life. And it is 
in order that the last gift may be communicated that 
Christ is clothed with universal power. That He 
may bring His little flock through unnumbered perils 
into the home of many mansions the Father has 
given Him all power in heaven and in earth. 



Chapter XVI : The Indwelling of 
Christ 



Not I, but Christ, be honoured, loved, exalted, 
Not I, but Christ, be seen, be known, be heard, 

Not I, but Christ, in every look and action. 
Not I, but Christ, in every thought and word. 

Not I, but Christ, to gently soothe in sorrow, 
Not I, but Christ, to wipe the falling tear, 

Not I, but Christ, to lift the weary burden, 
Not I, but Christ, to hush away all fear. 

Not I, but Christ, no idle word e'er falling, 
Christ, only Christ, no needless bustling sound, 

Christ, only Christ, no self-important bearing, 
Christ, only Christ, no trace of "I" be found. 

Not I, but Christ, my every need supplying. 
Not I, but Christ, my strength and health to be; 

Christ, only Christ, for body, soul, and spirit, 
Christ, only Christ, live then Thy life in me. 

Christ, only Christ, ere long will fill my vision; 

Glory excelling soon, full soon I'll see 
Christ, only Christ, my every wish fulfilling — 

Christ, only Christ, my all in all to be. 

—A. A. F. 



Chapter XVI: The Indwelling 
of Christ 

The abiding Indwelling of Jesus Christ in the 
heart of the believer is an experience more to be 
coveted than any other. It constitutes the crown 
and climax of the Christian life. God not only- 
pardons our guilt and saves us from its consequences ; 
He not only forgives, saying: '*Go in peace and sin 
no more;" He not only gives us a new nature, one 
that loves to do right and hates to do wrong ; He not 
only comes to our aid in temptation and trial, and 
interposes His strength and succour; but, above all 
this, He comes to live His own wonderful life in 
us in the Person of His Son Jesus Christ, and says 
to us work out your own salvation with fear and 
trembling, "for it is God that worketh in you both 
to will and to work for His good pleasure." (Phil, 
ii. 12-13). 

Our union with our Risen Lord is of such a 

character that we become partakers of His very 

nature; drawing our spiritual life from His Spirit; 

our mental vigour from His Mind; our physical 

strength from His Risen body; and our power for 

199 



200 The Way of the Cross 

service from His Omnipotence. He is already irt 
us, the dawn of the coming day. We are in vital 
contact with our destiny, that marvellous destiny of 
companionship with God throughout the ages. We 
have in this experience the hope of it. Christ is in us 
the hope of the glory yet to be revealed. 

"Blessed are the sons of God, 
They are bought with Christ's own blood; 
One with God, with Jesus one; 
Glory is in them begun." 

Dr. A. B. Simpson reminds us that the two 
prominent advantages of this secret are its sim- 
plicity and its universality. It is not a complicated 
mass of petty rites, ceremonies or enactments but 
one simple and comprehensive prescription, cover- 
ing everything, and needing only to be habitually 
applied, viz., Christ for Everything. And as it is 
so simple, so it is universal in its application. There 
is no side of human nature to which it does not 
apply, whether the inner life of the soul, the needs of 
the body, the circumstances of life, or the exigencies 
of duty and work. 

But this life has its conditions, and these we will 
now consider. 

I. DETACHMENT. (Phil. 3: I3, I4.) 

"I do not say that I have already won the race 
or have already reached the goal. But I am press- 



The Indwelling of Christ 201 

ing on, striving to lay hold of the prize for which 
also Christ has laid hold of me. Brethren, I do 
not imagine that I have yet laid hold of it. But 
this one thing I do — forgetting everything which is 
past and stretching forward to what lies in front of 
me, with my eyes fixed on the goal, I push on to 
secure the prize of God's heavenward call in Christ 
Jesus." — Weymouth. 

The Bishop of Durham's comment on this pas- 
sage is so wise and luminous that I venture to re- 
produce it: *'The Apostle's complete repose in 
Christ as the righteousness of God for him, and then 
his deep nearness to his Lord as the power of God 
in him, alike seem not so much to banish as utterly 
to preclude any thought about himself but that of his 
own imperfection. He writes as one whose very 
last feeling is that of complacency in his spiritual 
condition. His spiritual position, in Christ, as he is 
'found in Him,' fills him with much more than com- 
placency; it is his glory and his boast. But when 
he comes to speak of his spiritual condition, the 
possessing thought is that all is imperfect and pro- 
gressive. He has a perfect blessing; but he is an im- 
perfect recipient of it; he has *not attained.' He 
is deeply happy, but he is thoroughly humble. He 
has had a vision of absolute holiness which has com- 
pletely guarded him from the delusion of thinking 



202 The Way of the Cross 

that he is himself absolutely holy, even in the fullest 
state of grace." 

Unless we are prepared to detach ourselves, not 
only from things sinful, but also from things inex- 
pedient, we shall never know this experience in all 
its fulness and glory. I have read of a clever 
oculist who was also a clever cricketer. He was 
passionately fond of cricket, but a few days of 
cricket always unfitted him for his delicate profes- 
sional work. His hand was not as steady as before 
the excitement of the cricket match. He had, at last, 
to make his choice between being a great oculist or 
a great cricketer. He decided on the former, and 
detached himself from cricket that he might the more 
perfectly exercise his ministry of healing. 

We must, like Paul, forget everything that is 
behind us, refusing to allow the dead hand of the 
past to be laid upon our present or future, and 
turn a deaf ear to the Satanic suggestion that the 
past, with its failures, and imperfectly realised ideals, 
is only the prophecy of the future. Detached from 
everything that would hinder our progress, we must 
continually stretch forth to what lies in front of us, 
remembering that in this life there is no such thing 
as finality. 'There is no commoner cause of declen- 
sion in Church life," says one, "than the settling 
down upon second bests." 

What a picture there is here, not only of detach- 



The Indwelling of Christ 203 

ment but of intensity. Who that has ever seen 
the racer "stretching forward" towards the goal, 
that he may not lose the slightest advantage, can fail 
to see the force of the Apostle's figure. "Is our 
life characterised by any such intensity?" 

II. DETHRONEMENT. (2 Cor. 5: I4, I5.) 

"We thus judge, that One died for all, therefore 
all died; and He died for all, that they which live 
should no longer live unto themselves, but unto 
Him Who for their sakes died and rose again." 
The question in every life is who is on the throne? 
The power ruling within determines the character 
of the life manifested, for a throne implies a king. 

Are we living unto ourselves, or unto Him who 
for our sakes died and rose again? If we are living 
to Self we shall find that Self is "the long, low, 
ugly tap-root" out of which all that is hateful springs. 
If the power of the Holy Spirit has been claimed 
against Self for its dethronement, we shall find out 
in daily experience the truth of Charles Wesley's 
words : 

"More of Thy life and more I have, 
As the old Adam dies; 
Bury me, Saviour, in Thy grave. 
That I v^rith Thee may rise." 

Romaine, writing on The Inward Cross, says: 
"If Christ be not all in all, Self must still be looked 



204 The Way of the Cross 

upon as something great, and there will be food 
left for the pride of self-importance and self-suf- 
ficiency. Seek for the death of sin where thou wilt, 
it is not to be found but in His death. Dethroned 
in the life by the power of the Cross of Jesus . . . 
sin is put to a lingering death, kept upon the Cross, 
dying daily." Self as a personality is not destroyed 
but displaced. Christ takes His place on the throne, 
and the outcome is no longer the Self -life but the 
Christ-life. We are never meant to be our own 
centres, and we are eccentric until we find our true 
centre, which is Christ. When Self vacates the 
throne, and Christ becomes the centre of our per- 
sonality, then everything is adjusted to His sovereign 
will. 

Weymouth's translation of Paul's words is very 
luminous : "The love of Christ overmasters us, the 
conclusion at which we have arrived being this — 
that One having died for all, His death was their 
death, and that He died for all in order that the 
living may no longer live to themselves, but to Him 
who died for them and rose again." 

This is Paul's explanation of the overmastering 
love of Christ. So fully had the Apostle entered 
into the purpose of his Saviour's Death and Resur- 
rection; so absolutely was Christ enthroned in his 
life, that Self had no place whatever in it. He 
could say, "no more I." There are multitudes who 



The Indwelling of Christ 205 

never differentiate, in their prayers and utterances, 
between Jesus as Saviour and Jesus as Lord and 
King. He must be absolute Ruler, else the inexpres- 
sible possibilities of the Christian calling can never 
become actualities. There must be no more living to 
''ourselves." *'I was quite willing," said one, ''that 
Jesus Christ should be King, so long as He allowed 
me to be Prime Minister." In other words, "I want 
to be permitted, now and again, to assert my inde- 
pendence; there are certain matters which I wish to 
decide on my own account. There is certain busi- 
ness in the kingdom of my being that I want to 
transact." But that can never be. Jesus can never 
be Lord at all unless He is allowed to become Lord 
of all. 

I very much question whether the change, from 
absolute selfishness to absolute selflessness, has ever 
been more effectively described than by Theodore 
Monod in his well-known hymn. 

The first verse describes Self enthroned as Sover- 
eign: 

"Oh! the bitter shame and sorrow, 
That a time could ever be, 
When I let the Saviour's pity 
Plead in vain, and proudly answered — 
^All of Self and none of Thee/ " 

The second verse describes the beginning of 
Love's conquest, and the shaking of the dominion 
of Self: 



2o6 The Way of the Cross 

"Yet He found me; I beheld Him 

Bleeding on the cursed tree: 
Heard Him pray 'Forgive them, Father/ 
And my wistful heart said 'faintly — 
*Some of Self and some of Thee.' " 

The third verse describes the anxiety of Self to 
be retained as Prime Minister, if not as King: 

"Day by day his tender mercy, 
Healing, helping, full and free. 
Sweet and strong, and ah! so patient, 
Brought me lower while I whispered 
' Less of Self and more of Thee/ " 

The last verse describes the complete subjuga- 
tion of Self by the Christ of Calvary, and the 
enthronement of Jesus as King : 

"Higher than the highest heavens, 
Deeper than the deepest sea; 
Lord, Thy love at last has conquered: 
Grant me now my soul's petition — 
'None of Self and all of Thee/" 

"Let me henceforth seat Christ, my Redeemer 
and my King, on the very throne of my heart, and 
then keep every gate of my body and every avenue 
of my mind as all not any more mine but His. 
Let me open my eye, my ear, and my mouth, and 
all my members, as if, in all that, I were opening 
Christ's eye, Christ's ear, and Christ's mouth; and 
let me thrust nothing on Him, as He dwells within 
me, that will make Him ashamed or angry, or that 



The Indwelling of Christ 207 

will defile or pollute Him. Yes, O Paul, I shall 
henceforth hold with thee that my body is the 
temple of Christ, and that I am not my own, but 
that I am bought with a paralysing price, and must 
therefore, do nothing less than glorify God in my 
body and in my spirit, which are God's.'* So 
speaks that great disciple of William Law, Dr. 
Alexander Whyte. 

HI. DEPENDENCE. (Johnv:30.) 

"I can of my own self do nothing." In other 
words, Jesus took the place of dependence which 
Adam refused to take. The words in Psalm xl. 
verse 6, are applied to Him in the Hebrew letter. 
''Sacrifice and offering Thou hast no delight in: 
ears hast Thou pierced for me." The reference 
here is to Exodus xxi. 6, where the love-slave, re- 
fusing his proffered freedom, had his ears pierced, 
and was for a few moments held by an awl, through 
those pierced ears, to the door-post of his master's 
house. "I love my master," he said, "I will not go 
out free;" and the ears fastened to the door-post 
indicated this willing bondage and identity of in- 
terest with those of his master. 

Even so, Jesus refused to allow any of His powers 
for a single instant to go out free. That would 
have been an assertion of His independence, with 
its consequent penalty of death for His own sin. 



2o8 The Way of the Cross 

Satan tried again and again to tempt Him to assert 
His own powers. "Let your powers go out free," 
he said; "Make these stones into bread to satisfy 
your hunger." But Jesus disowned all power of a 
self -originating life. He never tried to act indepen- 
dently. He just hung on His Father, and said: 
"As the living Father sent Me, and I live because 
of the Father : so he that eateth Me, he also shall live 
because of Me" (John vi. 57). 

What a suggestive study this is as revealed in 
the Gospel of John. 

Nothing of Himself, John v. 19; v. 30; viii. 28. 

Never spake of Himself, John vii. 16; viii. 38; 
xii. 49. 

Never wrought a miracle of Himself, John v. 36; 
X. 37-38. 

Was ever the Sent One, John iv. 34 ; v. 24 ; v. 30 ; 
ix. 4; xi. 42; xii. 44-45. 

Never used human judgment, John v. 30. 

Not in the emergencies, not in the great crises, but 
in everything, we must cultivate the habit of depend- 
ence on Christ. Habitually recognise that He has 
undertaken the business of your life in all its de- 
partments; that there is not a difficulty that crops 
up but He has undertaken to carry you through it. 
He has become responsible, and only waits for you 
to use Him. "To have Him and make use of Him," 
says Bishop Moule, "is peace, and powxr, and purity. 



The Indwelling of Christ 209 

To do without Him is impossible; it is death. To 
use Him only partially is perpetual unrest and dis- 
appointment. He must be 'all things in all things ;* 
then there shall be a great calm within, and a great 
strength and great holiness with it, and at last an 
'appearing with Him in glory,' to crown the process, 
and give it its development for ever." 

IV. DEVOTION. (John xiv:2i, 24.) 

The question which Judas (not Iscariot) asked 
the Master proves that he held a low place among 
the Apostles. It seems pretty certain that the 
groups of fours, into which the Apostles were 
divided, were arranged according to their spiritual 
nearness to the Saviour. In all the lists Judas is in 
one of the last groups. A few days earlier Jesus 
seemed to have begun to do what they always wanted 
Him to do, manifest Himself to the world. Judas 
now thinks something has happened to make the 
Master go back to the old plan of a secret communi- 
cation. So he says, *Tord ! What has come to pass 
to induce you to falter upon the course on which 
we entered, when, amid the Hosannas of the multi- 
tude, you rode triumphantly into Jerusalem?" 

It was the old expectation of Messianic glory 
displayed in some still more ostentatious and pom- 
pous way. Jesus quietly tells Judas and the others 
the positive conditions and the negative qualifica- 



210 The Way of the Cross 

tions for His manifestation. We therefore have 
in one of these verses, as a great expositor says, 
"what brings Christ and what Christ brings; and 
in the other, what keeps away Christ and all His 
gifts." 

"If a man love Me, he will keep My Word'* (not 
words, as in the Authorised Version). It is an 
expression that includes all His teaching. His 
sayings constitute one organic whole, and we dare 
not pick and choose, saying in our hearts, "This I 
will keep and this I will reject." Remember that 
every word of His teaching has in it the impera- 
tiveness of His manifested will. And His Word 
must become the law of our lives. Are we as willing 
to come to Him for law as we are to come to Him 
for lifef 

. How, then, can we show our devotion to Christ? 
There is only one way; it is by loving Him and 
keeping His Word. Let us listen to that spiritual 
teacher George Bowen: "Christ represented the 
Father, and as men treated Christ they revealed their 
sentiments toward the Father. The Word of 
Christ represents Christ, and our sentiments towards 
Christ are revealed by our treatment of His Word. 
How many are labouring to settle the question 
whether they love Christ or not ? It would wonder- 
fully help them in the solution of this if they 
would first seek to ascertain whether they love the 



The Indwelling of Christ 211 

Word of Christ or not. The Christian is one who 
keeps the Word of Christ. He that keeps not the 
Word of Christ, but suffers the adversary to take it 
away from him as often as it is given him, is not a 
Christian." 

Are you longing to show your devotion to Jesus 
Christ? There is a simple way of showing it quite 
within your reach. Begin to treat the Word of 
Christ as you would treat Christ Jesus Himself, 
and remember that all assurances of devotion that 
do not find expression in this way are valueless. 

Listen again : "If a man love Me, My Father will 
love him/' So the Father identifies all love to Jesus 
as love to Himself, and, in wonderful language, the 
Master says : ''We will come and make our mansion 
with him." Our heart is His permanent abode only 
so long as we fulfil the conditions. If Self-will is 
indulged, and is allowed to reassert itself in the 
heart, Christ's presence vanishes. We can only keep 
Him enthroned as the King of our life by perpetual 
acts of loving obedience, and we can only lovingly 
obey as we yield to the pressure and power of the 
Holy Spirit. 

V. DISCIPLINE, (i Cor. ix: 25-27.) 

"Every competitor in an athletic contest prac- 
tices abstemiousness in all directions. They in- 
deed do this for the sake of securing a perishable 



212 The Way of the Cross 

wreath, but we for the sake of securing one that 
will not perish. That is how I run, not being in 
any doubt as to my goal. I am a boxer who does 
not inflict blows on the air, but I hit hard and 
straight at my own body, and lead it off into 
slavery, lest possibly, after I have been a herald to 
others, I should myself be rejected as unworthy of 
the crown and the prize." (Weymouth's trans- 
lation of I Cor. ix. 25-27). 

Paul tells us that he exercises constant discipline 
lest, after being a herald to others, and telling them 
how to win the prize, he should lose it himself. 

The word translated "a castaway" in the Author- 
ised Version is adokimos, and means disapproved, 
just as dokimos in I Cor. xi. 19 means approved. 
A man may be a child of God, and yet disapproved 
as a servant of God. To be approved, to reach the 
maximum of our spiritual privileges, involves con- 
stant self -judgment, self-denial, self -crucifixion. 
Many are accustomed to think that the question of 
their personal security is the only question of any 
moment. That is a great mistake, for by careless 
living, by giving lodgment to Self in any of its 
forms, whether hateful or beautiful; by carelessness 
and unwatch fulness ; by neglect of communion; by 
failing to keep the Master's sayings, we forfeit the 
highest possible service to the world, that of mani- 
festing, in our life, the loveliness of Jesus Christ. 



The Indwelling of Christ 213 

If we are to know the blessed secret of making 
use of Jesus as He reigns enthroned in our life, 
we must take care to do always the things that please 
Him. Will He be pleased if we spend our early- 
morning leisure moments over the newspaper to the 
neglect of His Word ? One of the greatest preachers 
of the age resolutely refuses to look at his newspaper 
until the afternoon. He does this as a matter of 
discipline, because he found that the reading of the 
news encroached upon time needed for the study 
of God's Word. The tongue must be disciplined, 
for the temptations to superficiality and shallowness 
through over-much talk were never greater than to- 
day. The mind must be disciplined, and its loins 
girded up, to use Peter's figure, otherwise there will 
be great mental slackness. And so in all directions. 
So easily do we turn aside and grieve our gracious 
Guest, if we neglect self -discipline. 

"Want of self-control," says one, "makes one a 
poor slave — slave of his impulses, slave of his pas- 
sions, slave of his surroundings : disqualifies him for 
great and noble uses in this life. It was not Paul's 
life, it was Christ's life in Paul — a great, real. Divine 
thing that had caught Paul in its current and was 
bearing him on, flowing through him soul and body, 
and reducing him daily to its own heavenly complex- 
ion. Every believing man knows that. He knows 
that he is perfect master of himself only in the pro- 



214 The Way of the Cross 

portion in which Christ is Master of him, and he 
knows that Christ is Master of him in proportion 
as he shrinks from sin, and puts Self-seeking and 
Self-indulgence under his feet. The Christian man 
is bound to call into solemn review every sinless en- 
joyment and every innocent habit which he finds 
to be encroaching on his reserve of moral power, and 
lessening in him that moral enthusiasm which is the 
spring of all moral attainment." This is true Chris- 
tian discipline. 

A PRAYER 

My Omnipotent Lord, enable me to do what, 
apart from Thy enabling, is impossible. Yet since 
it is Thy Will I can ask in the utmost confidence. I 
would be detached from everything that 'would 
hinder me, and therefore hinder Thee, in the ac- 
complishment of Thy purpose. 

Let me be willing that Self should be completely 
dethroned in my life. When I have sometimes 
thought the victory was won, I have found to my 
humiliation that I was still m bondage to my old 
enemy. He is too strong and subtle for me. Do 
Thou, therefore, cleanse the temple of my being as 
Thou didst in the days of Thy flesh. Drive out all 
the buyers and sellers, and make my heart a house of 
prayer. 

Teach me the life of absolute dependence upon 



The Indwelling of Christ 215 

Thee. I am so prone to creaturely activity and 
creaturely self-assertion. I have so often failed to 
realise that apart from Thee I can do nothing. 

"My Master, lead me to Thy door ; 
Pierce this now willing ear once more : 
Thy bonds are freedom; let me stay 
With Thee, to toil, endure, obey." 

May I show my devotion to Thee by my love of 
Thy Word, and by my glad and quick obedience to 
Thy sayings. May I never pick and choose among 
Thy commands, but regard every Word of Thine as 
binding upon me. To this end help me patiently and 
diligently to study Thy precepts; to be as glad to 
come to Thee for Law as for Life; and to remember 
that Thy commandments are not grievous. 

Let me never through carelessness or self-indul- 
gence be disapproved; but, submitting to the disci- 
pline of the Holy Spirit, may I lay aside every 
weight; run the heavenly race; and at last finish the 
course and win the crown. I ask this in the Name 
of Jesus my Saviour and King. — Amen. 



Chapter XVII : Reckoning at the Cross 



When people are uncertain about anything, they say 
"I guess," but when they know a thing to be accurate, 
they say "I reckon." It shows there is an element of 
intelligence about it. There are some of us who are very 
bad at reckoning; but all may reckon thus. One of the 
simplest things in the world is this : "Twice one are two." 
There is eternal truth underneath this. All the mathe- 
maticians in the world cannot make 2 + 2 = 5. There- 
fore, there is eternal unchangeableness and reliable truth 
at the basis of this simple reckoning. I make out three 
things in the process. First, fix your mind upon this 
figure, this symbol of a number, 2. Secondly, in its rela- 
tion to that other figure 2, 2 and 2. What is the third 
absolute certainty? Something that once seen, you never 
can unsee. 2 and 2 make 4. "Likewise reckon ye your- 
self to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, 
through our Lord Jesus Christ." The reckoning has to 
do with my need here, and with that great full salvation 
there. Now, let us see. I put down this first of all. 
"God has power to cleanse my soul from all sin, and 
make me live to Himself." Is that a positive thing? 
That I might put down as number 2. Very well, God has 
in the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ made an ample, 
adequate provision for the cleansing of my soul. That 
also is 2. The next thing is this. God has promised in 
His Word, in unequivocal English, that He will cleanse 
my soul from all sin, and make me thoroughly alive to 
Him. That is the third figure. What is the fourth? 
God who has this power, God who has provided this 
salvation, God who has given this promise is faithful. He 
is "God that cannot lie." Now, I come up to these figures 
and I say, here is my amazing need, my unutterable depth 
of need for cleansing and fulness of love. Here is the 
power of God through the redemption of Jesus Christ. 
Here is God's promise, and here, covering all, the abso- 
lute faithfulness of God. Twice i are 2, twice 2 are 4. 
Lord, I believe. 

— Isaac E. Page, 



Chapter XVII: Reckoning at 
the Gross 

When the suspension bridge across the Niagara 
was to be erected, the question how to get the cable 
over was solved by a favouring wind. A kite was 
elevated, which alighted on the other shore. To its 
insignificant strand a cord was attached which was 
drawn over, then a rope and finally a cable, strong 
enough to sustain the iron cable which supported 
the bridge, over which heavily-laden vehicles pass 
to and fro in perfect safety. Standing within sight 
of the Cross, and beginning to comprehend what 
the Sin-bearer's death means to us, we begin a 
reckoning, which, as Professor Beet says, *'may 
seem at first akin to madness," but which is so 
wonderfully honoured on God's side, that what at 
first was like that tiny strand, increases and strength- 
ens by the law of habit, until it becomes an unshak- 
able medium of intercourse between ourselves and 
God. 

Let us notice some of the laws which govern the 

exercise of this vital principal which we call faith. 

We are so constituted, that it is not possible for us 

219 



220 The Way of the Cross 

to put forth a volition to do anything which at the 
same time we beHeve it impossible to do. Our voli- 
tion will be weakened or strengthened, moreover, in 
proportion as our belief in the practicability or im- 
practicability of what is proposed is strong or weak. 
A strong faith will make a strong will, and a weak 
faith a weak will. If we question for a moment 
the obtainability of such a life as we have been 
thinking about, we immediately cut the strands of 
that bridge across which we may communicate with 
God, and be the recipients of His choicest communi- 
cations to us. It was because men believed in the 
practicability of the Niagara bridge that it was ac- 
complished. The faith that overcame the barriers to 
its erection was natural ; the faith we are called upon 
to exercise is religious, because it is directed to re- 
ligious objects; and if natural faith is mJghty, faith 
that fastens itself upon God is almighty. Religious 
faith takes hold of the infinite God, and every ele- 
ment of His nature is pledged in the behalf of the 
man or woman who says, ''I believe God" That 
definition of faith so frequently heard, as "taking 
God at His Word," may mean nothing more than 
taking the Word as God's. A key is only of value 
as we use it for the lock and door we want to open ; 
and the Word is the key which introduces us to di- 
rect and living contact with God Himself. It is in 
this fellowship with God that we hear His voice 



The Reckoning at the Cross 221 

speaking the promise, and when we have heard God 
speak, it is easy to beheve His Word. 

Unbelief has always a moral cause, and this en- 
trance into God's presence so as to hear and believe 
His voice, is only possible when we have put away 
from our lives everything, whether sinful or doubt- 
ful, that is out of harmony with His will. The 
three great lines of self -surrender are — to be any- 
thing the Lord wants us to be; to do anything He 
wants us to do; to suffer anything He wants us to 
suffer. These embrace the subjective, the active, 
and the passive forms of our existence, and every 
point in each line must be yielded, however severe 
the struggle may be. 

The crucial point with many is the surrender of 
the will. This is the backbone of our being, the ar- 
biter of the soul, the grand marshal of the faculties, 
and, until fully yielded to God, is strong when it 
ought to be weak, and weak when it ought to be 
strong. But our will must be surrendered, and 
God's will must be accepted, that "good and accept- 
able and perfect will of God." It has been put thus. 
Here is a circle which represents His will. I 
voluntarily place myself in the centre of it, and 
resolve to be what God wills, to do what God wills, 
to suffer what God wills. I renounce my own plans 
and preferences and programmes and accept His. 
Whatever comes to me, comes to me through His 



222 The Way of the Cross 

will, so long as by an obedient walk and an unfalter- 
ing faith I maintain the position I have taken. Should 
an unkind letter reach me, it reaches me through His 
will ; should the angel of death darken my home, he 
visits me because God wills. I am in my Father^s 
school. He has many lessons to teach me, and they 
are not half as hard to learn when I recognise His 




loving voice, and know that in weal and woe, in 
prosperity and adversity, in sunshine and in storm, 
I am safe in the centre of His will. 

Under these circumstances faith becomes as easy 
as breathing. As chemical action immediately en- 
sues when the proper fluids come into contact with 
the proper metals in the electrical jar, producing 
the ethereal fiery current, so the moment the soul is 
fully yielded to God, faith springs up, spiritual action 
ensues, and light and life possess the heart. 

When thus perfectly yielded to God on every 
point, for time and for eternity, there is nothing to 



The Reckoning at the Cross 223 

hinder this reckoning of faith and the laying of our 
offending nature upon the altar of Christ's Cross for 
entire destruction. From that moment we may 
begin — in the utter absence of feeling or emotion — 
to reckon ourselves "dead unto sin and alive unto 
God through Jesus Christ," for the three key- words 
of the wonderful message in Romans vi. are "know," 
"reckon," "yield." "As soon as men open the door 
by removing the strong and indurated bolt of their 
worldly affections, He comes quicker than his own 
lightnings, and claims His seat of dominion in the 
inner soul. It is done so quickly that there is no 
longer an opportunity to look for Him abroad. 
There He is, rejoicing in His recovered position; 
forgetting and forgiving all the injury and guilt of 
His exclusion; purifying and beautifying the man- 
sion which had been stained with the world's darkest 
sin, and rent with its stormy sorrow." 

"Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us 
cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and 
spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (2 Cor. 
vii. i). The prompt decisive act is represented by 
the phrase "let us cleanse," which is in the aorist — 
a tense which denotes singleness of act, a point in 
the expanse of time. The patient^ gradual, maturing 
work is expressed in the phrase which follows: 
"carrying holiness to completion in the fear of God." 

In 1765 John Wesley answered the question, 



224 The Way of the Cross 

*^What shall we do in order that this work of God 
may be wrought in us?" as follows : — "In this, as in 
all other instances, by grace are ye saved through 
faith. Full sanctification is not of works, lest any 
man should boast. It is the gift of God, and it is 
to be received by plain, simple faith. First, believe 
that God has promised to save you from all sin and 
to fill you with Himself. Until we are thoroughly 
satisfied of this, there is no moving one step farther. 
Secondly, believe that He is able thus to save com- 
pletely all who come to Him through Christ. Ad- 
mitting that with men this is impossible, this creates 
no difficulty in the case, seeing with God all things 
are possible. Thirdly, believe He is willing to do 
it now. Is not a moment to Him the same as a 
thousand years? He cannot want more time to 
accomplish whatever is His will. Fourthly, believe 
that He does it now. Not at any distant time, not 
when you come to die, not to-morrow, but to-day. 
He will then enable you to believe it is done, ac- 
cording to His word." 

A great difficulty with many, is in the maintenance 
of this reckoning, until the act of faith grows into 
a habit, and sinful habits are replaced by those that 
are of the Spirit of God. Let us recall the illus- 
tration given on an earlier page. The plant has con- 
demned a leaf to decay, and the moment the silting- 
up process begins, the leaf is doomed. It may be 



The Reckoning at the Cross 225 

weeks before it falls off, but it is as good as dead al- 
ready. The plant never goes back on its resolve, if 
we may so put it, to deny that leaf further nourish- 
ment, and throw its sap in another direction. Let 
us learn the lesson. Evil habits, which are the 
growth of years, are doomed the moment we put 
the Cross of Christ between ourselves and them, 
and if we keep the Cross there, never going hack on 
our first reckoning, the fate of these sinful habits is 
irrevocably sealed, even though for weeks they may 
seek to regain their former ascendancy. We must 
keep on reckoning. 

This is a matter which concerns the will, and when 
the will trembles obediently on the verge of action, 
the infinite resources of God are at its disposal in an 
instant. When the paralytic willed to stretch forth 
his withered hand, God's enabling power came in 
between the act of willing and the act of stretching 
forth. Reckon on God, and throw the responsibility 
on Him. A gentleman was riding with his host. 
The host wanted to return home by a certain road, 
but there was a difficulty. The chestnut mare his 
guest was riding refused to pass a certain bridge. 
She had been tried again and again, but always in 
vain. The host suddenly remembered that his guest 
was what he called ''a praying man," and he thought 
he had an opportunity of testing the power of prayer. 
Was it worth anything in an exigency of this sort? 



226 The Way of the Cross 

The man of God was quite willing to trust his Lord, 
and away they rode. Hastening across the bridge, 
the host turned to see a struggle and perchance a 
victory over a nervous horse. But there was victory 
without struggle. He saw his friend drop the reins 
on the mare's neck as they came to the bridge, and 
heard him say, as he looked upwards, ''Now, Lord 1" 
and quietly as a lamb the mare crossed the bridge. 
Let us reckon thus on God, and when the bridge has 
to be crossed, let us learn to drop the reins, casting 
the responsibility on Him, say, "Now, Lord!" and 
He cannot fail because He cannot deny Himself. 



Chapter XVIII : The School of 
Obedience 



Are children trained 
Only that they may reach some higher class? 
Only for some few school-room years that pass 

Till growth is gained? 
Is it not rather for the years beyond 
To which the father looks with hopes so fair and fond ? 

He traineth so 
That we may shine for Him in this dark world, 
And bear His standard dauntlessly unfurled: 

That we may show 
His praise, by lives that mirror back His love, — 
His witnesses on earth, as He is ours above. 

Not only here 
The rich result of all our God doth teach 
His scholars, slow at best, until we reach 

A nobler sphere: 
Then, not till then, our training is complete, 
And the true life begins for which he made us meet. 

Look on to this 
Through all perplexities of grief and strife, — • 
To this, thy true maturity of life, 

Thy coming bliss ; 
That such high gifts thy future dower may be, 
And for such service high thy God prepareth thee. 

! — F. R. Havergal. 



Chapter XVIII: The School of 
Obedience 

It is a noteworthy fact that whenever the example 
of Christ is presented to us in Scripture for our imi- 
tation, it is His example in suffering 'Tet this mind 
be in you," says St. Paul, ''which was also in Christ 
Jesus." All the features of the disposition which He 
thus sets before us for imitation have to do with 
self-renunciation. We see suffering carved on every 
step Jesus took, until He reached the lowest, and 
'became obedient unto death, even the death of the 
Cross" (Phil. ii. 5-8). To suffer patiently for 
well-doing is, St. Peter says, ''acceptable with God. 
For even hereunto were ye called ; because Christ also 
suffered for us, leaving us as an example, that ye 
should follow His steps" ( i Peter ii. 20, 21 ) . "For- 
asmuch then," says the same writer, "as Christ hath 
suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise 
with the same mind" (i Peter iv. i). "Beloved, 
think it not strange," he says yet again, "concerning 
the fiery trial which is to try you, as though 
some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice 

229 



230 The Way of the Cross 

inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings" 
(i Peter iv. 12, 13). 

The reason for this noteworthy fact is given in 
Hebrews v. 8, 9: "Though He were a Son, yet 
learned He obedience by the things which He suf- 
fered; and being made perfect, He became the 
Author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey 
Him." In other words, we can only become pos- 
sessed of the mind of Jesus by going into the same 
school, by putting ourselves into the hands of the 
same teachers, and by joyfully submitting ourselves 
to the same discipline. 

There is great danger lest the preciousness and 
indispensableness of the experience of suffering 
should not be sufficiently emphasised.* It is pleasant 
and easy to learn obedience under some teachers, 
but before we have graduated in this school we must 
pass into the hands of others whose lessons are not 
pleasant or easy; we must go out of the sunshine 
into the darkened room ; gladness and joy must 
give place to anguish and soul-travail, and through 
an experience of suffering from which, perchance, 
we start and shrink, we learn obedience. 

What does this learning of obedience mean? 
The principle of obedience is one thing, and the 
application of it is another. The disposition of 
obedience Jesus possessed before he suffered, but 
the proof that the disposition existed must be shown 



The School of Obedience 231 

in deed, and the progress from the disposition to the 
deed was the practical learning of the virtue of 
obedience. 

The first question is, how may the zone of 
obedience be reached so that not on nine occasions 
out of ten we shall say "yes" to God, but that we 
shall never say aught but "yes" to Him? The 
answer to this question has been given in earlier 
chapters, and it will suffice here if we say simply 
that the usurping monarch Self must be completely 
vanquished and deposed, by inviting and trusting 
Jesus to take the throne of the heart. It is only 
when He has come to purify, to possess, and to rule, 
that we are able to say: "All that the Lord hath 
said will we do and be obedient." The word "obey" 
comes from a Latin compound, it means that which 
you do in consequence of what you hear. 

As Isaac Pennington says: "The holy skill of 
obeying the truth is hid from all living but such as 
are begotten and brought up in the mystery of sub- 
jection to the Lord. *Thy people shall be willing in 
the day of Thy power.' It is the power of God 
that works the will in the heart, and the same power 
works to do also (Phil. ii. 13) ; and none can learn 
either to will or to do aright, but as they come to be 
acquainted with that power, joined to that power, 
and feel that power working in them. In this power, 



232 The Way of the Cross 

holy obedience is as natural as disobedience is to the 
birth of the flesh. Blessed be the name of the Lord/' 

Obedience, to be perfect, must be submitted to 
test. You cannot call a child obedient if his obe- 
dience has never cost him anything; nor do you 
know that he will obey when the trial comes unless 
he has been already put to the test, and so has had 
an opportunity of applying the principle which ex- 
isted in his heart. In this progress from the prin- 
ciple to the application, from the disposition to the 
deed, there is, and must be suffering. 

The Divine nature of Jesus could not be perfected 
— that was perfect already; but human nature is 
born weak and undeveloped, and it has to grow. 
One of its essential laws is its capability of improve- 
ment, and thus it was that Jesus, by passing through 
a long curriculum of trial and suffering, learned 
obedience. He could only learn obedience by becom- 
ing incarnate, by stooping to share our discipline, 
and bearing the Divine will as a yoke, instead of 
wielding it as a sceptre. His obedience was per- 
fected by suffering, and with His obedience His 
human character. The means produced the end 
with Him that it might produce the self -same end 
with us, and from the moment of His perfection 
Jesus consecrated suffering as a minister of the 
Divine purpose, so that His followers need no longer 
shrink from and tremble at it, but rather glory in 



The School of Obedience 233 

and welcome it as a conquered foe that has become 
their friend. 

There are different ways, as a g'reat teacher 
reminds us, both of knowing and of learning. "A 
large part of our knowledge is either intuitive and 
ideal, residing in the pure reason; or speculative — 
that is, gathered by deduction and mental inference. 
Another kind is learned by what we call life — ^by ex- 
perience, personal trial, entanglement with events, 
struggles in doing and suffering ; and what we learn 
in this way we know with a depth and familiarity 
far beyond all other knowledge : it is now part of our 
living energies and powers, and dwells in our very 
being. Not only is its stamp imprinted on us, but 
it so passes into us as to blend with our whole inner 
nature. We are what we have done and suffered.** 

To shrink, therefore, from suffering is to shrink 
from what is a requisite part of our education both 
for earth and for heaven. We shall be spiritual 
babes all our lives, spelling out nothing but the 
alphabet of Divine truth, if we refuse to drink of 
the cup of which Jesus drank, and to be baptised 
with the baptism that He was baptised with, for "it 
became Him for Whom are all things, and by Whom 
are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to 
make the Captain of their salvation perfect through 
sufferings." He could not have become our Leader 
and Captain had He not trod the rough road He 



,234 The Way of the Cross 

calls upon us to tread. Exemption from suffering 
would have meant exemption from Leadership. He 
could not have lifted us into a share of His glory- 
had He not stooped to the companionship of our 
griefs ; nor can we rightly call ourselves His soldiers 
unless we are following in His steps ; or expect to be 
lifted into the companionship of His glory unless we 
are among those who know the ''fellowship of His 
sufferings." 

We have spoken of suffering as the school of 
obedience, and of this experience as absolutely 
necessary to the completion of our education both 
for the earthly and heavenly service. It is necessary 
for service on earth. It is because Jesus ''suffered 
being tempted" that He is "able to succour them 
that are tempted." "If ever I fall into a surgeon's 
hands with broken bones," is a remark which has 
become almost proverbial, "give me one whose own 
bones have been broken." To take our degree in 
the school of obedience means a qualifying for such 
a ministry as would be otherwise impossible; and 
what work is more to be coveted or necessary than 
that of feeling with, comforting and sustaining 
those whom God counts worthy of the honour of 
suffering. 

Of our ministry in the other life we know but 
little, for "it doth not yet appear what we shall be." 
This we do know, however: the lessons we have 



The School of Obedience 235 

learned here will not be lost there, and in the service 
of heaven we shall be eternally thankful for the 
schooling of earth. Nothing will give us greater 
comfort than to remember this. We have a clearly 
defined purpose in expending time, money, and skill 
upon our children in their earlier years. And no 
lesson is without its value, either in the disciplining 
of the mind, the acquisition of knowledge, or the 
formation of character. We may be certain that 
God has a clearly defined plan, both for the present 
and future life for every one of His children; that 
no lesson, however seemingly trivial or important, 
pleasant or painful, is purposeless; and that "all 
things are for our advantage." 



Chapter XIX : The Tests of Obedience 



Sometime, when all life's lessons have been learned, 

And sun and stars for evermore have set, 
The things which our weak judgments here have spurned, 

The things o'er which we grieved with lashes wet. 
Will flash before us out of life's dark night, 

As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue, 
And we shall see how all God's plans are right, 

And how what seemed reproof was love most true. 

And you shall shortly know that lengthened breath 

Is not the sweetest gift God sends His friend; 
And that, sometimes, the sable pall of death 

Conceals the fairest boon His love can send. 
If we could push ajar the gates of life, 

And stand within, and all God's workings see, 
We could interpret all this doubt and strife. 

And for each mystery could find a key. 

But not to-day. Then be content, poor heart! 

God's plans like lilies pure and white, unfold; 
We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart. 

Time will reveal the calyxes of gold; 
And if, through patient toil, we reach the land 

Where tired feet, with sandals loosed, may rest. 
Where we shall clearly see and imderstand — 

I think that we shall say, "God knew the best." 

— May Riley Smith, 



Chapter XIX: The Tests of 
Obedience 

God always has a niimber of His children under 
examination. Some of them pass with honours, 
but a few are turned back to learn their lessons 
over again. Many fail in this critical time in their 
spiritual history because they do not understand 
the Divine purpose. They cry out with Job: **He 
hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, He hath 
set darkness in my paths." They do not perceive 
that the position they have taken over and over again 
is being put to the test. 

Madame Guyon puts it thus: "God will give us 
opportunities to try our consecration, whether it 
be a true one or not. No man can be wholly the 
Lord's unless he is wholly consecrated to the Lord; 
and no man can know whether he is thus wholly 
consecrated except by tribulation. That is the test. 
To rejoice in God's will, when that will imparts 
nothing but happiness, is easy even for the natural 
man. But none but the renovated man, none but 
the religious man, can rejoice in the Divine will 
when it crosses his path, disappoints his expectations, 

239 



240 The Way of the Cross 

and overwhelms him with sorrow. Trial therefore, 
instead of being shunned, should be welcomed as 
the test — and the only true test — of a true state. 
Beloved souls, there are consolations which pass 
away, but true and abiding consolation ye will not 
find except in entire abandonment, and in that love 
which loves the Cross. He who does not welcome 
the Cross does not welcome God." 

How many have repeatedly and deliberately said 
to God : ''I put myself wholly into Thy hands : put 
me to what Thou wilt; rank me with whom Thou 
wilt; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me 
be employed for Thee, or laid aside for Thee; ex- 
alted for Thee, or trodden under foot for Thee; let 
me be full, let me be empty ; let me have all things, let 
me have nothing; I freely and heartily resign all to 
Thy pleasure and disposal." 

In due time God takes us at our word. He has 
had us in His school for months, or it may be for 
years, and has given us great freedom and joy. He 
has set our feet in a ^'large place" of blessing, when 
suddenly, perhaps, suffering of the severest character 
takes the place of the delightful experiences through 
which we have been passing. The vessel which has 
been sailing under fair and sunny skies is struck by 
a hurricane, and her staunchness is tested to the 
uttermost. 

Among the many comforting words in such a 



The Tests of Obedience 241 

season, that of the Apostle James is most sustaining. 
He says: ''Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye 
fall into manifold trials; knowing that the proof of 
your faith worketh patience. And let patience have 
its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, 
lacking in nothing" (James i. 2-4). Note the 
condition, surrounded by ''manifold trials/* Out of 
surroundings which have been conducive to peace, 
comfort, and outward prosperity, we suddenly fall 
into the midst of a marauding band of trials. We 
seem, as one says, to be 'left to the heartlessness of 
a thousand petty demons, who pervade every little 
circumstance ; who seem, like the fabled Lilliputians, 
to tie our hands and feet while we sleep; who snap 
all the threads of our financial looms ; who upset our 
ordinary plans ; who turn anticipated joys into ashes. 
There are times when a current of such things seems 
to set in; times when everything seems to weave 
itself into a network of crippling environment, and 
any effort to extricate ourselves only bruises us." 

We are tempted to be terrified by our adversaries, 
to despise the chastening of the Lord, to grow weary 
of His correction, and to faint in the day of ad- 
versity. To prevent our yielding to either of these 
temptations, God has clearly revealed His purpose, 
and has distinctly told us what our attitude should 
be. If ever we needed to listen for the voice of 
Infinite Love it is now. Listen, He speaks : "Fear 



242 The Way of the Cross 

not; for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee 
by thy name; thou art Mine. When thou passest 
through the waters, I will be with thee; and through 
the rivers, they shall not overflow thee : when thou 
walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; 
neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am 
the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy 
Saviour" (Isa. xliii. 1-3). 

In giving a lecture on Flame, a scientist once 
made a most interesting experiment. He wanted to 
show that in the centre of each flame is a hollow, a 
place of entire stillness, around which its fire is a 
mere wall. To prove this he introduced into the 
midst of the flame a minute and carefully shielded 
charge of explosive powder. The protection was 
then carefully removed, and no explosion followed. 
The charge was again shielded and withdrawn. A 
second time the experiment was tried, and by a 
slight agitation of the hand the central security was 
lost, and an immediate explosion told the result. Our 
safety, then, is only in stillness of the soul. If we 
are affrighted and exchange the principle of faith for 
that of fear, or if we are rebellious and restless we 
shall be hurt by the flames, and anguish and dis- 
appointment will be the result. 

Moreover, God will be disappointed in us if we 
break down. Testing is a proof of His love arid 
confidence, and who can tell what pleasure our 



The Tests of Obedience 243 

steadfastness and stillness give to Him? If He 
allowed us to go without testing it would be no 
compliment to our spiritual experience. Much trial 
and suffering mean, therefore, that God has con- 
fidence in us ; that He believes we are strong enough 
to endure; that we shall be true to Him even when 
He has left us without any outward evidence of His 
care, and at the seeming mercies of our adversaries. 
If He increase the trials instead of diminishing them, 
it is an expression of confidence in us up to the pres- 
ent, and a further proof that He is looking to us to 
glorify Him in the yet hotter fires through which 
He is calling us to pass. Let us not be afraid. The 
subtilties of the self -life will be exposed and the 
hateful thing destroyed. We shall be delivered from 
the outward and the transitory, and drawn into far 
closer fellowship with God Himself. 

Think when you use the sharp blade of your pen- 
knife that its keenness has only been produced by a 
terribly severe process. The best steel is subjected 
to the alternates of extreme heat and extreme cold. 
That little blade was heated and hammered, then 
heated again, and then plunged into the coldest 
water to give it its right shape and temper. It would 
not be in your hand had it broken down under this 
tempering process. If, when it was put upon the 
grindstone, any flaw had appeared, even though 



244 The Way of the Cross 

previously it had seemed a perfect blade, it would 
have been rejected as useless, and thrown aside. So 
God, longing for our equipment for the highest ser- 
vice, tests us in a thousand ways. All things — there 
is no exception whatever — are working together for 
the purification, the refining, the testing, and the 
approval of human character. Now we are cast into 
the furnace of affliction, heated seven times hotter 
than it is wont to be heated; now we are plunged 
into the cold waters of bereavement; and now we 
are ground between the upper and nether stones of 
adversity and disaster. How shall we come forth? 
That depends entirely on the way we endure. If 
we simply say, "As God will, and in the hottest fire 
stand still," He will give us a place of honour 
among his servants, and crown us with immortal 
glory. 

''He knoweth the way that I take, and when He 
hath tried me I shall come forth as gold." The hay 
and tne stubble fear the fire, but the gold challenges 
the flame to do its worst. Therefore 

"Let thy gold be cast in the furnace. 

Thy red gold, precious and bright; 
Do not fear the angry fire 

With its caverns of burning light; 
And thy gold shall return more precious, 

Free from every spot and stain; 
For gold must be tried by the fire, 

And the heart must be tried by pain." 



The Tests of Obedience 245 

The apostle James tells us what the purpose of 
the testing is, **That we may be perfect and entire, 
lacking in nothing" (i. 4). A perfect machine 
fulfils the object for which it is made, and a per- 
fect Christian is one of such a character that he ful- 
fils the object for which he has been made a Christian. 
"Entire, lacking in nothing," conveys the idea of 
being properly adjusted and arranged, so that our 
avenues of temptation are properly guarded. A 
builder never thinks of putting a window in the floor, 
or a door in the ceiling, and God would have our 
moral nature so adjusted that we may have every- 
thing in its place, and consequently be "entire, lack- 
ing in nothing." 

Shall we shrink from an experience, however pain- 
ful, which accomplishes an end like this? That 
which makes us mature in Christ Jesus, lacking in 
nothing that a Christian man should possess and 
enjoy, is worth any suffering, however severe or 
protracted. Though, therefore, we have "for a little 
while been put to grief in manifold trials, that 
the proof of our faith, being more precious than 
gold that perisheth though it is proved by fire," let 
us, as James exhorts us, ''count it nothing but joy." 
God desires not our comprehension in such times, 
but our confidence. He is disciplining us for eternal 
companionship with Himself, and because "it doth 



246 The Way of the Cross 

not yet appear what we shall be," let us joyfully 
stand in the midst of the fiery furnace, knowing 
that we shall lose nothing in the fire but our bonds, 
and that ever in the midst thereof will be One who 
really is the Son of God. 

We shall cease to wonder at the pains God takes 
to purify and perfect human character, when we 
remember that it is the only work of His hands 
which, so far as we are conerned, will last for ever. 
Everything else that we possess and pursue is fading 
and perishing already. Moral character, built up 
under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy 
Spirit, partakes of God's immortality, because it is 
nothing less than the Divine nature incarnate, 
incorporate and made manifest in man. 

So precious is its acquisition to God that He 
spares no cost to produce it. He puts us just where 
His purpose can best be accomplished. We some- 
times complain as to the nature of our environment, 
but when God put us where we are He had the 
choice of the whole world open to Him, and could 
His purpose have been better achieved in other sur- 
roundings, He would have placed us there. Let us 
work out our salvation in thankful co-operation with 
Him. The diamond can offer no resistance to the 
cutter, nor can the clay offer intelligent response to 
the potter. We can both resist and respond. 



The Tests of Obedience 247 

Thankfully recognising what Butler calls "the 
providential disposition of things," let us cease from 
the former and, with our whole heart, give ourselves 
to the latter. 



Chapter XX : Step by Step 



*'Keep step with Jesus!" Can that be for me? 
Oh, may I really walk by faith with Thee? 
I, who have often wandered far away, 
And grieved Thee with my coldness day by day? 

How often, Master, I have "lagged behind," 
And feared to follow, when Thy voice so kind 
Has called on me, bidding me trust in Thee, 
However dark the pathway seemed to me. 

And have I not sometimes stepped out alone, 
Nor waited for Thy hand to lead me on. 
And of the future thought with anxious care, 
Instead of taking "the next step" in prayer? 

Afresh to-day I put my hand in Thine, 
With childlike trust would all to Thee resign; 
Just lead me where Thou wilt and guide me still, 
Fulfilling in me all Thy blessed will. 

— E, May Grimes, 



Chapter XX: Step by Step 

The late Bishop of Durham, in his valuable 
work, "Veni Creator," reminds us that there is a 
speciality of phrase in the Greek word rendered 
"walk" in Galatians v. 25. He translates the verse, 
"If we live by the Spirit, let us also take step by 
step by the Spirit/' Conybeare's translation is 
equally suggestive: "If we live by the Spirit, let 
our steps be guided by the Spirit." It is one thing 
to "live by the Spirit," to know that we have life by 
His power; it is another thing, in the minutest 
details of daily life, to yield to the authority and 
guidance of our Life-giver. Andrew Murray thinks 
these words suggest to us very clearly the difference 
between the sickly and the healthy Christian life. 
"In the former the Christian is content to 'live by 
the Spirit' ; he is satisfied with knowing that he has 
the new life; but he does not walk by the Spirit. 
The true believer, on the contrary, is not content 
without having his whole walk and conversation in 
the power of the Spirit." 

Why is the position so often taken, in those large 
gatherings of Christian people, now so common, not 

251 



252 The Way of the Cross 

more generally maintained? How many, in a 
supreme moment, under the mighty power of God, 
throw open every avenue of their being to the in- 
coming of the Holy Spirit ! And we dare not doubt 
that He floods the entire being with His energy 
when it is thus surrendered to Him. But the ex- 
perience is often transitory, as set forth in the 
following lines : — 

. . . "There have been moments pure, 
When I have seen Thy face and felt Thy power; 
Then evil lost its grasp, and passion hushed 
Owned the Divine enchantment of the hour. 
These were hut seasons beautiful and rare." 

Why "seasons beautiful and rare'? Because 
those who thus surrender themselves, do not go 
away to "take step by step by the Spirit." In an 
unguarded moment self has been allowed to regain 
the supremacy, and some portions of the life have 
been given over to its control. Steps have been 
taken, not by the Spirit, but by the flesh. For a 
little moment, perhaps only in what seemed a trifling 
detail, the reins, which were unconditionally placed 
in the hands of the Spirit of God, were snatched out 
of His grasp. A grieved Spirit, and a life and work 
from which the power has departed, are the result. 

In many cases this is more the result of careless- 
ness than anything else. Hence the need of clearer 
teaching on this subject. The Christian worker has 



Step by Step 253 

said, like Samson, "I will go out as at other times 
and shake myself. But he wist not that the Lord 
was departed from him." He finds, to his sorrow, 
that some subtle evil has shorn him of his strength, 
that some little rift within the lute has made the 
music mute, but how or why he scarcely knows. 

John Wesley, knowing how much higher an ex- 
perience it was to take step by step by the Spirit 
than simply to live by the Spirit, refused to recognise 
the Christian perfectness of some of his converts, 
because they were wanting, he said, in the evidence. 
"They do not steadily use that kind and degree of 
food which they know, or might know, would most 
conduce to the health, strength, and vigour of the 
body; or they are not temperate in sleep; they do 
not rigorously adhere to what is best for body and 
mind; otherwise they would constantly go to bed 
and rise early, and at a fixed hour ; or they sup late, 
which is neither good for body nor soul ; or they use 
neither fasting nor abstinence; or they prefer (which 
are so many forms of intemperance) that preaching, 
reading, or conversation which gives them transient 
joy and comfort, before that which brings godly 
sorrow or instruction in righteousness." 

Many Christians have yet to learn the meaning of 
that word, ''Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or 
whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God," for to 
take step by step by the Spirit means that our meat 



254 The Way of the Cross 

and drink, and everything that touches the domain 
of our senses, must ever be placed under a sacred 
discipline. The same discipline is equally indis- 
pensable for the life of our affections and thoughts; 
for our reading, for our recreation, for our literary 
and artistic pursuits. To ignore the guidance of 
the Holy Spirit in any of these departments of life 
is to cause Him grief, and to forfeit the spiritual 
power of which He would have us to be the unfail- 
ing aqueducts to a dying world. 

Lest anyone should imagine that a life which is 
thus lived step by step by the Holy Spirit is an 
irksome one, let us say that unfailing obedience 
always produces unfailing joy and peace. A joyless 
Christian is almost unvariably a disobedient Chris- 
tian. "A life of self -renouncing love is a life of 
liberty," for where the Spirit of the Lord is — where 
He is recognised and obeyed in the minutiae of life — 
"there is liberty." 

"Step by step" is the secret of a life which is 
never perturbed, never surprised by sudden assaults 
of the evil one, never shorn of its spiritual strength. 
With returning consciousness there is, in such a life, 
a resolute determination to take no step in the 
untrodden pathway of the day but by the Spirit. 
His guidance is sought and His will consulted in the 
choice of food. Anything that has been known to 
dull the spiritual vision, and unfit the body for the 



Step by Step 255 

sacred uses for which it is designed, will be avoided. 
"What effect will this book have upon my spiritual 
life? Will it increase or diminish my relish for the 
Word of God?" are questions we shall ask when 
opportunities for reading are afforded us. *'l never 
spend a penny," said a poor widow one day to the 
writer, "without asking that I may be guided how 
to spend it." She was seeking to take step by step 
by the Spirit. We need not particularise further. 
Here is the principle by which our life is to be 
governed, and to follow it will fill our life with such 
joy and power as we never dreamt of before. 

The two realms, which men have designated 
secular and sacred, will "melt into each other as 
the roseate streaks of dawn melt into the splendours 
of the morning" as we take step by step by the 
Spirit; for when the Spirit of Christ breathes 
through our life the meanest occupation becomes 
Divine. Nothing is little or great with regard to 
the things of God. Everything that bears the 
impress of His will is great, however trifling it may 
appear. It is this alone which gives value to the 
duties of our life, and nothing can be regarded as 
small or insignificant that is the object of His desire. 
A natural tendency to untidiness is easily overcome 
if, for His sake, and that we may please Him in 
everything, we keep the room or the papers in order. 

And it is this carefulness to please God, even in 



256 The Way of the Cross 

the smallest trifles, that proves the reality and 
delicacy of our love. '*We do not love perfectly 
when we neglect small occasions of pleasing the 
One Whom we love, and when we do not fear to 
wound Him with trifles. The jealousy of God is 
infinite; it extends to everything, and every soul 
that truly loves will try never to give this Divine 
jealousy any cause of offence." 

Our life is made up of these little steps. We 
fancy we could be heroic on some great occasion. 
We could die for Christ we think, if called upon 
to lay down our life for Him. It is questionable, 
however, if we could, unless we have cultivated the 
martyr spirit hour by hour, for if our strength and 
desire to please God have failed in the trifles of our 
life, how can we be sure of them in the great testing 
time? It is far harder to live for Christ moment 
by moment than it is to die once for Him; and 
if we wait for great occasions in which to display 
our fidelity, we shall find that our life has slipped 
away, and with it the opportunities which each hour 
has brought of proving our love to our Lord, by 
being faithful in that which is least. 

It is a startling fact that if the earth were de- 
pendent upon the sun alone for heat it would not 
keep existence in animal and vegetable life upon its 
surface. The stars furnish heat enough in the 
course of the year to melt a crust of ice seventy 



Step by Step 257 

feet thick — almost as much as is supplied by the sun. 
This seems strange when we consider how immeas- 
urably small must be the amount of heat received 
from any of these distant bodies. But the surprise 
vanishes when we remember that the whole firma- 
ment is so thickly strewn with stars, that in some 
places thousands are crowded together within a space 
no greater than that occupied by the full moon. 
This illustrates the truth we have been seeking to 
enforce. It is to the thousands of little acts, which 
have been made bright because the Spirit of Christ 
has come into them all, that the true child of God 
owes the light and heat and beauty of His life. 

We cannot do better than close with the following 
striking words of Pastor Stockmayer: "When sin 
or our selfness, at any distance whatever, shows 
itself in our horizon, when we notice something in 
the wind so that our moral sky, our spiritual at- 
mosphere, is not altogether clear, let us know that it 
is His grace which signals the danger. His Spirit 
Who awakens our attention. Let us stop at once; 
let us hasten to our refuge under the shadow of His 
wings ; let us renewedly tighten the bonds that unite 
us to Him, until the light of His countenance has 
driven away the last vestige of the cloud, and the 
atmosphere has again become luminous. Be not 
discouraged, if at the first attempt thou failest to 
realise this life. Though thy communion with God 



258 The Way of the Cross 

be a hundred times, yea, a thousand times inter- 
rupted, do not suffer thyself to be paralysed by these 
sad experiences. It is true that the wrong done to 
thy soul by even one momentary separation from 
God, such as one sin can occasion, a sin by thought, 
or word, or deed, is far more disastrous than thou 
canst know. Nevertheless there may be something 
worse, something which adds evil to evil, namely, 
permitting thyself to be discouraged instead of re- 
turning immediately to God, in order to find in Him 
pardon and renewing of life." **If we live by the 
Spirit, let us also take step by step by the Spirit." 



Chapter XXI : The Cross Day by Day 



Here is one inexhaustible paradox of this great mat- 
ter ; on one side a true and total self-denial, on the other, 
a daily need of self-crucifixion. This is a thing which I 
am content simply to state, and to leave it as the Lord's 
word upon the believer's mind and soul. 

But ''daily" ; without intermission, without holiday ; now, 
to-day, this hour; and then, to-morrow! And the daily 
"cross"; a something which is to be the instrument of 
disgrace and execution to something else! And what 
will that something be? Just whatever gives occasion of 
ever deeper test to the self-surrender of which we have 
spoken; just whatever exposes to shame and death the 
old aims, and purposes, and plans, the old spirit of self 
and its life. 

Perhaps it is some small trifle of daily routine : a cross- 
ing of personal preference in very little things; accumu- 
lation of duties, unexpected interruption, unwelcome 
distraction. Yesterday these things merely fretted you 
and, internally at least, "upset" you. To-day, on the con- 
trary, you take them up, and stretch your hands out upon 
them, and let them be the occasion of new disgrace and 
deeper death for that old self-spirit. You take them up 
in loving, worshipping acceptance. You carry them to 
their Calvary in thankful submission. And to-morrow 
you will do the same. 

;— Bishop Moule. 



Chapter XXI: The Cross Day 
by Day 

"If any man will come after Me, let him deny 
himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me" 
(Luke ix. 2^). We have spoken in the earHer 
chapters of this book of a Cross on which, in the 
power of the Holy Spirit, we have seen nailed the 
flesh with its passions and lusts. We will think in 
this closing chapter of that cross which has to be 
taken up day by day, for a Christian, as Luther 
says, is a Crucian. The Saviour pictures to His 
hearers a procession. He Himself taking the lead 
with His Cross. He is the chief Crucian. All His 
true disciples follow in this procession. Each has 
his own particular cross, and the direction of the 
procession, when one looks far enough, is towards 
the kingdom of heavenly glory. 

The Crusaders used to carry a painted cross on 

their shoulders, and some talk of bearing a cross 

which sits just as lightly. It is to them a mere 

thing of ornament; a passport to respectability, for 

there is a cross which has become fashionable, and 

261 



262 The Way of the Cross 

from which all trace of suffering and self-denial has 
disappeared. 

That is not the character of the cross of which 
Christ spoke to His disciples. The life to which He 
calls us, and the path along which He leads, is 
characterised by cross-bearing from beginning to 
end. In outward appearance the cross varies, but 
it is always something which crosses self, and frees 
us from our own self-will. It is therefore the way 
to rest, for the only place in the wide world in which 
the soul can find true rest is in taking up the yoke 
or cross of Christ. In doing our own will there is 
never rest, but in yielding to the will of another 
there is. 'The soul abiding under this cross comes 
into the true, pure, and perfect liberty, where it hath 
scope unto holiness, freedom unto righteousness, 
and is in strait bonds and holy chains from all 
liberty to the flesh, and from all unholiness and 
unrighteousness of every kind." 

Someone has described this cross-bearing life as a 
spread-out surrender, a surrender which covers our 
whole sphere of action, and lasts all our days. It is 
often in little things that Christ asks us to deny our- 
selves, and it would be far easier for some to take 
up a great cross and die once upon it than to take 
up these little crosses day by day and die a deeper 
death upon them. So the word "daily" becomes 



The Cross Day by Day 263 

to some, what Christ's Cross was to the Jews, a 
stone of stumbHng and a rock of offence. 

Yet, as we have already suggested, it is only in 
this cross-bearing life, in ever yielding our will to 
our Lord, that we find rest and peace. The way of 
the Cross is the Royal way, and they who tread it 
are kings and priests unto God. It is always to 
those who tread it the way of glory as it was to 
Christ, "Who for the joy that was set before 
Him, endured the Cross, despising the shame." 
It was because of this that Paul gloried in tribula- 
tion, ^'knowing that tribulation worketh patience; 
and patience, experience; and experience hope: and 
hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God 
is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, 
which is given unto us" (Rom. v. 3-5). "He that 
hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin." 

On several occasions art has been sanctified to 
illustrate this. In one picture, for example, a bit of 
moorland stretches its lonely waste away into the 
distance, and slopes up to the white hills beyond. 
In the foreground, a few scattered shrubs have 
forced their way among the rocks so sharp for 
tender feet. Up from the valley, over which dark 
clouds hover, a young woman comes with slow, sad 
steps and serious mien. From a rift in the sky above 
her, a softened light falls upon a cross at her feet. 
A cross, before whose rude weight her delicate 



264 The Way of the Cross 

shoulders shrink. At her side all unseen, the 
Saviour, who has guided her to this lonely spot, 
stands watching her. Not with bowed form and 
marred visage, not as the Man of Sorrows, but as 
her Risen Lord has He come. Clad in a robe of 
spotless white, which falls from throat to sandalled 
feet. He bends on her a look in which patient love 
and steadfast purpose, and tender pity, are most 
divinely blended. As He stands there watching, 
waiting, the figure starts to life from the canvas, 
and we hear in melting tones, "Christ hath many 
lovers of His kingdom, and but few bearers of His 
cross !'* No longer do the timid steps falter. Lines 
of resignation gather about the brave mouth. With 
her beautiful hair blown back from her serious face, 
her sweet eyes, "homes of silent prayer," her whole 
figure expressive of the most touching humility, she 
stoops to raise it. 

But lo! the wondrous change! A moment ago 
there lay before her misty eyes only the cross's 
rugged form and weary weight. But now, with the 
clearer vision granted in her hour of submission, she 
sees clusters of dewy roses clinging to it lovingly. 
They hide the rude outline. They lay their velvet 
petals caressingly over the sharp edges. They open 
their golden hearts, and with prodigal sweetness 
throw their perfume all abroad upon the air. They 
lighten the ponderous weight. They shield her from 



The Cross Day by Day 265 

the harsh touch. They brighten and beautify the 
pathway which promised to be so dark and lonely. 

Ah ! the artist has done more than simply to 
symbolise a glowing idea. With his magic brush 
he has broken into these brilliant hues the white 
light of an immortal truth. They who have borne 
the daily cross, can testify how rich and full it has 
made their life; how blessed beyond all others are 
they upon whom it is laid. With that mysterious 
blending of the will in Christ, peace flows into the 
soul like an unbroken river. To a heart beating 
ever in accord, through Him, with nature's sym- 
phonies, the common things of life lose their mean- 
ness, and there comes daily a new "splendour in the 
grass, and glory in the flower." 

Who could ever read Samuel Rutherford's letters 
without noting how this aspect of the daily cross 
was ever before him ! Listen : "He that looketh 
unto the white side of the cross, and taketh it up 
handsomely, findeth it just such a burden unto him 
as wings are to a birdf' . . . 'T find that His sweet 
presence eateth out the bitterness of sorrow and 
suffering. I think it is a sweet thing that Christ 
saith of my cross, 'Half Mine!' and that He 
divideth these sufferings with me, and taketh the 
larger share to Himself; nay, that I and my whole 
cross are wholly Christ's." . . . "Some have one 
cross, some seven, some ten, some half a cross. Yet 



266 The Way of the Cross 

all the saints have whole and full joy; and seven 
crosses have seven joys. I find the very frowns of 
Christ's wooing sweet and lovely. I had rather 
have Christ's buffet and love-stroke than another 
king's kiss. Speak evil of Christ who will, I hope 
to die with love-thoughts of him." . . . **I have 
neither tongue nor pen to express the sweetness and 
excellency of the love of Christ. My chains are 
gold. Christ's Cross is over-gilded and perfumed: 
His prison is the garden and orchard of my delights. 
I would go through burning quick to my lovely 
Christ." ... "I give under my own handwriting 
to you a testimonial of Christ and His Cross, that 
they are a sweet couple, and that Christ hath never 
yet been set in His own due chair of honour 
amongst us all." ... "I find crosses, Christ's 
carved work that He marketh out for us, and that 
with crosses He figureth and portrayeth us to His 
own image, cutting away pieces of our ill and cor- 
ruption. Lord cut. Lord carve. Lord wound, Lord 
do anything that may perfect my Father's image 
in us, and make us meet for glory." . . . "Oh how 
sweet a sight it is to see a cross betwixt Christ and 
us, to hear our Redeemer say, at every sigh, and 
every blow, and every loss of a believer, 'Half 
Mine !' So they are called *the sufferings of Christ' 
and 'the reproach of Christ/ As when two are 
partners and owners of a ship, the half of the gain 



The Cross Day by Day 267 

and half of the loss belong to each of the two; so 
Christ in our sufferings is half -gainer and half -loser 
with us. Yea, the heaviest end of the black tree of 
the cross lieth on your Lord : it first f alleth on Him, 
but it reboundeth off Him upon you: and if your 
cross come through Christ's fingers, ere it come to 
you, it receiveth a fair lustre from Him ; it getteth 
a taste and relish of the King's spikenard, and of 
Heaven's perfume. And half of the gain, when 
Christ's shipful of gold cometh home, shall be 
yours." . . . 

The threefold repetition of the word '*cannot" in 
Luke xiv. is suggestive. Unless we live this cross- 
bearing life we cannot be His disciples (verses 26, 
27j 33)- It is not that we "shall not" but "cannot" 
be. In other words, this is an unalterable law of 
discipleship. The only possible way by which we 
can do the will of God, and live out the ideal Chris- 
tian life, is by the absolute surrender of ourselves 
to our Divine Lord. Without this absolute sur- 
render, which, as we have said, is spread out over 
the whole of our life, we may come after Christ 
outwardly, we may be called by His name, but we 
''cannof be His disciples any more than a bird can 
fly without wings. On the other hand, as that 
famous Crucian, Rutherford, says : "H we take up 
the cross handsomely, we shall find it just such a 
burden as wings are to a bird." 



268 The Way of the Cross 

In bearing patiently the little contradictions, the 
slight inconveniences, the trifling losses so frequently 
encountered, the daily cross will become our daily 
bread. The nourishment of our life will be to do 
the will of God as it comes to us in those things 
that were once trivial annoyances^ but are now op- 
portunities of saying a continual Amen to the will 
of God. Herein is meat which the world knows not 
of, and in accepting that will the soul finds perfect 
rest and complete satisfaction. 

Let us beware of self-made crosses. We need 
never go out of our way to find them, and those 
which we make for ourselves are double crosses, 
because, being outside the will of God, they bring 
no strength, consolation, or fruit. Such are all 
crosses which arise from uneasy fears about the 
future. We have no right to anticipate His dis- 
pensations, or attempt to supply the place of His 
providence by a providence of our own. *'How long 
shall I have to lie here, doctor?" asked the patient, 
at the commencement of a weary illness; and the 
Christian physician could not have given a more 
suitable answer : ''Only one day at a time !" 



'Charge not thyself with the weight of a year, — 
Child of the Master, faithful and dear — 
Choose not the cross for the coming week; 
For that is more than He bids thee see^'.. 



The Cross Day by Day 269 

Bend not thine arms for to-morrow's load; 
That thou may'st leave to thy gracious God. 
'Day by day' ever saith He to thee, 
'Take up thy cross and follow Me.' " 

Let us then welcome the daily cross, and ask as 
each morning dawns, How may I deny myself for 
Christ to-day; and as the evening shadows gather 
around us and we lie down to rest, to be carried on 
even in our sleep by the gales of the Holy Ghost, 
let our question be, ''Have I found rest and joy and 
glory to-day in bearing my daily cross?" 



THE END 



